


A Tale Not Quite As Old As Time

by Krasimer



Category: LazyTown
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Dad Robbie Rotten, Depressed Robbie Rotten, Elf Sportacus (LazyTown), Ella loves her father, Eventual Robbie Rotten/Sportacus, Fae Robbie Rotten, Gen, M/M, Magic Robbie Rotten, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Robbie Rotten/Sportacus, Robbie as the "Beast", Robbie is a good dad., Sportacus (LazyTown) Has a Different Name, Sportacus as "Beauty", Sportacus is a title, Supportive Sportacus (LazyTown), Tryggvi is his name, but only sort of, Íþróttaálfurinn & Sportacus (LazyTown) Are Related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2018-12-09 14:10:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11670669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: What are you supposed to do when your entire family is cursed by a faerie and her stupid little rhyme (There always seems to be a stupid little rhyme) indicates that a hero is supposed to save you?Especially when you don't believe in heroes. They don't exist, so why should you believe in them.(Or: The one that is a mashup of Lazytown and Beauty and the Beast.)





	1. Welcome To The Beginning

“Did you see him today?” the whispers in the street market are hushed and excited.

“Who?” asks a newcomer. The excitement isn’t out of place for having possibly seen a celebrity, someone big who might change their lives if they’d met them. The whispers happen each time the market does, the same chain of events each time.

“The man who lives on the hill!” One of the older girls whispers back, her eyes wide and excited. “They say he built himself a clockwork daughter, that she wakes and sleeps to the music of the box he brought her to life from. They walk through the market sometimes, her small hand on his elbow.” One of the others rolls her eyes, another one who has seen him before. “It’s true, I swear!”

“It’s true enough that they come to the market together,” she sighs and smacks her hand gently against her friend’s arm. “But he’s just an odd man who adores his daughter. Anyone who watches them can see it.”

The one who doesn’t know frowns, his blue eyes glinting in the light. The crate of produce he’s hauling from the stall his family runs back to their truck is the result of trading with the others in the market and he rests his elbows on the edges of it. “Who is he?” he looks between the two girls, almost frowning at their glances.

“His name is Robin,” one of them says. “No one in town knows where he lives, but he comes down from the hill every other week and he brings his daughter with him. He’s tall and awkward looking and his daughter is this perfect little doll.” The one who spoke was the one who had burst the other’s bubble and tried to land her back in reality. “She looks perfect, anyway. Always wears a ballet skirt and flats, like she’s practicing for something. She’s a good kid, always quiet. Smiles if you give her something.”

“A doll?”

“Oh, yes!” the first one to have spoken butts back in, excited again. “She looks like a doll. That’s why some of the others who are here every week say she must be clockwork. Perfect movements and rosy little cheeks, a pretty little perfect doll.”

“But she’s just a little girl,” the other says firmly. “It’s not nice to spread rumors about people.”

“…It’s not,” he finally speaks again, looking off in the direction of the hill.

“Tryggvi!” calls a deep voice from one of the trucks. “Are we ever going home, or do we want to live in the market until next week?” The words are followed by laughter, booming and genuinely happy. “I do not think I would mind, but your mother and cousin might have something to say about that!”

“Ah,” Tryggvi pulls his elbows off the crate and hefts it back into his arms, his cheeks an embarrassed pink. “I must be going.”

“See you next week!” one of the girls called after him.

 

~

 

The next week, Tryggvi sat in his father’s stall and watched the crowds, his chin balanced on his hand.

He had spent the entire week thinking over the rumors the girls had spread, turning them over in his head and poking through the holes in them. So a mysterious man and his daughter had come into the market. So what? So many people came to the market each week that it was frankly astounding that they had even spotted them more than once.

Why did they care?

There have been odder things. There have always been odder people. The man named Robin and his daughter were probably the furthest thing from odd, just blown into the territory by rumors and the stories people like to craft around others they don’t know. The man was probably just a doting father and liked to bring his daughter to the market.

The man probably-

Was standing right in front of him while he daydreamed away. The little girl holding onto his arm was wearing a ballet skirt and flats, her hair brushed back into two pigtails on the sides of her head. Tryggvi scrambled, nearly falling out of his seat, and met his eyes, offering a bashful smile. “So sorry, sir.”

“It’s alright,” the man smiled back at him, somewhat hesitant and awkward, his teeth slightly bucked. “We haven’t seen you in the market before, is your stall new?”

“Ah,” Tryggvi nodded, his smile brighter this time. “Yes! My father decided to start selling the fruits and vegetables our family grows. Would you like to try something?” he watched the little girl studying the fruit display in front of her, one small hand reaching up to tug gently at her father’s sleeve. The girls had been right about one thing: the girl was oddly doll-like, her skin seeming to be living porcelain instead of flesh and blood.

“Ella would like to try something, if she could,” the man’s voice was deep, a somewhat thick accent curling around the edges of his words.

“Certainly,” Tryggvi looked at the girl, still smiling. “Is there anything, in particular, you would like to try?” he gestured the fruit in front of them. “You can try whatever you want, just tell me first so that I can slice one for you. No sense in getting things messy if you don’t have to.”

Her eyes lit up a little, an odd grey-blue that matched her father’s. With a moment of hesitance, she gestured to something, then frowned, shrinking back a little.

She still didn’t speak.

“Is everything alright?” Tryggvi looked to the other man, worried. He looked back to Ella, saw her hand tighten in front of her, her fingers moving minutely. “…Oh!” he laughed, then nodded. He thought for a moment, then moved his hands, signing out a greeting while he said it. “It’s alright,” he followed it up, still smiling. “I can understand sign language.”

Her entire face brightened, her small smile changing into a full grin. Her hand detached from her father’s elbow, meeting with the other one to fall into a flurry of signs. Her father watched Tryggvi, his own eyes wide and surprised.

“Oh, well certainly,” Tryggvi reached for a nectarine, pulling the ripest one he could see up and grabbing the small knife he kept behind the counter with him. “Late summer fruits are my favorites, I think. Stone fruits, apples, some kinds of melons, too! Do you have a favorite?” he carefully held the slice out to her, chuckling when she took it and tucked it between her teeth so she could continue signing to him.

“Thank you,” her father seemed to relax minutely, something softer around the edges of his smile. “The people here often treat us like we’re…Outsiders. Odd.”

“I will admit,” Tryggvi frowned a little. “I had heard rumors, some of the other stall runners talking about you, but I wouldn’t pay them any mind. People always make up stories about others when they don’t know the truth. If they aren’t nice enough to stop and find out the real story, then they do not matter in the long run, is what I think.”

The other man smirked, a pleased little chuckle echoing in his throat. He held out a hand. “Robin.”

Taking it with a smile, he said, “Tryggvi. This is my family’s stall. When you come to the market, come see us anytime.” He looked at Ella, still chewing on the piece of nectarine as she watched her father. “You too, alright? You both seem nice and I am always happy to help someone find a fruit they might like.”

Ella perked up, signing something quickly.

“Oh, raspberries?” Tryggvi nodded. “I like those as well. One of my favorites berries.”

She stepped back from the counter, hiding behind her father as she looked out at the other stalls and the bright blue sky above them. Her eyes tracked a cloud and she was almost immediately lost in the sort of dream world that many children go into.

“Trustworthy, hm?” Robin studied Tryggvi for another minute, an almost sly smile curving his lips. “It’s a good name, keep it close to yourself and keep it safe.”

He nudged gently at Ella’s shoulder, offering her his arm. When she took it, Robin smiled and the two of them walked off together, disappearing into the crowds of people. When he couldn’t spot the back of Robin’s head anymore, Tryggvi felt something tense in his chest unwind, almost like he had been holding his breath the entire time.

 

~

 

Across town, in a house nestled at the edge of the forest, the moon shone into the bedroom of a young girl.

As the light hit her face, her eyes opened slowly. She sat up with careful movements, bending her knees with her hands until her legs were out from under her blankets and her feet were on the floor. She wore a long, purple nightgown.

Immediately she changed her clothing as if it were the start of a day.

When she stepped out into the hallway, a dark purple dress brushed below her knees. Her feet had hastily been pushed into black slippers and she had the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She closed the bedroom door behind her and paused to look at the shape on the floor. With a sigh, she knelt down and tilted the head up, meeting her own face and smiling sadly. Her own hair was longer than the version of herself that she was studying, nearly to her waist. Upon waking, she had merely brushed it back from her face and braided it.

“Ella?”

“Uncle,” she turned to look at him, smiling. “Is father awake yet?”

“Nah,” he knelt down next to her, a small smile on his face. “Do we need to move your doll into the lab? I noticed you were having some trouble today.”

“Oh, so you were the one with me today,” Ella giggled, then nodded. “Yes. I had trouble moving the joints for some reason. And I just…” she reached up, brushing her fingers over her throat, frowning. “The voice still doesn’t work. The clockwork is perfect, father’s work always is, but it just…Doesn’t work for some reason.”

“Eh,” her uncle shrugged, reaching over to pick up the doll version of her, cradling it in his arms. “He’ll figure it out, run himself into the edge where night meets morning, drop into an exhausted sleep, do it all again the next night. We have a week until the next market. I’m sure he’ll have it fixed by then. And, hey,” he stood up, adjusting the doll so that it was easier to hold. “Next time, it might be one of us the entire time. Maybe even actually your dad.”

“So that was him speaking?” she looked up at her uncle, her eyes wide. “Was it every time he spoke or just that last?”

“Every time, kiddo. I could feel him fighting to keep control, but the magic wouldn’t let him do more than that.” He smiled down at her, patting the top of her head when she matched pace with him, her much shorter legs having to resort to skipping to keep up. “We had fun today, right?”

“Yes!” she smiled up at him, still skipping along. “…I’m starting to forget what the sun feels like, though.”

“Yeah kiddo, me too.”

“Uncle Tobby?” Ella stopped in the doorway to the lab, her hands twisted together. “Do you think father will ever be able to…I…” she stuttered for a couple seconds longer. Tobby settled the doll of her onto a cleared off table, coming back to stand next to his niece. “We’ve already lost Uncle Glanni,” she whispered, looking around him to see the glass coffin set into the wall. There were five others, unsealed, open, next to him. They were arranged by height, it seemed. The shortest one on the end was for her, she knew it was, and looking at it set something in her chest to nervous panic.

Beneath the glass, Glanni looked like he was sleeping.

His eyes were closed, his arms loose-limbed at his sides, and he still wore the clothing he had been found in. For every year that passed, the curse took another one of them away. Stolen from their body like the drop of a roller coaster stole your breath.

Immediate, jolting, somewhat terrifying.

Glanni had been the eldest of the Glæpur siblings. Next was her father. Then it was her uncles; first Bobby, then Tobby, then Flobby.

And then it was her turn.

She had measured her coffin once, felt herself fill with a cold dread until her father had pulled her away from it and hidden her face in his shoulder. The coffin was only a hands length taller than she was. It allowed for little growth, very little change to her and her life.

Ella Glæpur was going to die, still a child.

Feeling tears well up in her eyes, she looked up to her uncle and tried to smile. “Is he awake yet?”

“Ella,” came her father’s voice. He stood at the other side of the lab, dressed in his robe and slippers still. His pajama pants were purple and maroon striped, pinstripes of gold in between, and she giggled. “Come here for a second?”

She nodded, skipping across the room, slowing only when she passed the coffins.

Robin smiled, setting his mug of coffee down and taking her cheeks in his hands. As he ran his fingers over them, he chuckled. “There’s my girl,” he muttered, leaning down to hug her. “You did very well at the market today. The fruit seller was very nice.”

“You said to look for any new ones,” she smiled at him, her hands curled tightly around his shoulders.

When he stood up straight and lifted her up, an arm bracing under her, she let him. She was still a child, she knew that. She still wanted the comfort and safety of being held by her father. Robin turned to look at his brother, his eyes carefully skimming over the wall above Glanni’s coffin. “Did everything else go well today, Tobin?”

“Yeah,” Tobby nodded, smiling at both of them. “I’m gonna go get Florens and Ruthbert up. There’s some stuff we need to get done tonight.”

Robin nodded, already sorting through the papers on one of his tables with his free hand. “Ella?”

“Yes, father?”

“What’s not working with your doll?”

“The joints are stiff,” she wiggled, getting him to set her down. When he did, she walked back across the room, standing next to the mimic of herself. “I know there’s not going to be the smoothness of my joints, but the arms were locking up at times, and the left ankle felt…Wobbly.”

“Alright,” Robin wrote it down, nodding to himself. “I can fix that in probably about an hour or two of work. For now, I’d much rather just…” he sighed, smiling at her. “Today was good, right?”

Ella nodded, smiling wide. “Tryggvi was nice!”

“Oh? I only got to witness him firsthand for a few moments. What was he like?”

“He offered me something to try, anything I wanted. And then I couldn’t speak, so I…But I remembered the people who made fun of me the last time I signed in public and I just…” she felt so small in moments like that, felt ready to hide from the world until she felt bigger again. “But he saw my hands twitch and he looked at me and met my eyes. He made sure to use mouth shapes so I could read his lips and he signed what he was saying!”

“He encouraged you to use sign?” Robin laughed. It was a sound she didn’t hear that often, a deep-throated chuckle, sometimes even a snort. His accent was still in his voice and that was how she had figured out he was the one talking at the market. “Perhaps he is good, then. Most of the other ones we run into don’t act like you’re worth talking to.”

“I know,” Ella nodded, dropping into a chair and rolling over to her father’s side. “How does the curse go again?”

“ _Find the one with the heart of gold, the one who seems to be heaven-sent. Let the future fast unfold, allow no evil to be meant. Find a hero that’s kind and true, let the years no longer fly. Ignore my words, peril comes to you. Each year to pass, another dies.”_ Robin glanced out the window, narrowing his eyes on the forest. “Seems easy enough, if cliché. We’re just supposed to find someone who accepts us as we are, I guess.”

“But it hasn’t been easy,” Ella shook her head, her braid bouncing off her shoulders. “We’re awake at night, asleep during the day. It’s only because of our magic that we can even still leave the house! If she wanted us to find someone to play the part of a hero, she should have at least let us leave!”

Robin nodded, the exhaustion in him weighing his entire body down. “I know.”

“…Uncle Glanni would say that it’s a stupid poetry-curse,” Ella muttered. “Probably doesn’t even matter anyway. The words never matter, that’s what Glanni was saying. Before he…Before.”

Tugging her gently into his side, Robin kissed the top of her head, nodding. “I’ll fix your doll tonight.”

“Okay, father.” Ella let herself fold into his side, feeling tears welling in her eyes again.

She was only eleven, what else was she supposed to do?

 

~

 

His daughter was asleep.

Somehow, in the nineteen months they had been under the curse, Ella had not gotten used to sleeping on a nocturnal schedule. She still wanted to sleep and wake with the daylight. The daylight was the world she wanted to be in. Ella belonged in the sun.

He would kill himself if it meant getting her back into it.

Robin readjusted her so that he could move without her head slipping and hitting something. She was still so young, too young. The curse that had taken their family apart nearly at the seams was…Someone’s idea of revenge. They lived on the edge of a fae-forest. Inherited the land and house from their parents when they had passed away.

Only to find out that a fae had taken offense to new people.

What little he remembered leading up to the curse involved a fae who had thought she deserved to inherit the land and the house on it. There had been no deals involved in it, there had been no contact between the Glæpur family and her.

She had just wanted.

There were nights that Robin wondered if the curse was a red-herring. Something the fae had made up to make it seem more mystical than it was. Nineteen months of searching, of digging through every scrap of history and fairytale alike had produced no answers. No reasons, no escapes, just the certainty that they would all die. There was nothing they could do to stop it. The entire Glæpur family was just going to die, fading into nothingness and not even making it into the history books.

Robin watched his daughter, the up-down steadiness of her breathing. She was a strong child, stronger than she should have needed to be.

He was aware of the rumors in town, the ones that spread when he sent his dolls into the market. Over the last year, he had developed them to allow his daughter some freedom. The one that stood in for him, he was barely able to control himself. The best guess he had was that he was the current subject of the curse.

The next to die.

The dying couldn’t do as much as the living.

So he left it for his brothers to control. He spoke out of it, managing to connect that little bit, and it worked out for all of them. Tobias, Ruthbert, and Florens knew to watch over Ella. They adored her as much as he did, almost to the point of spoiling her. The use of magic and clockwork, mechanics and untold hours perfecting the dolls was worth it. Ella needed to see the sun again, needed to be able to wander around in the day.

His daughter had barely spoken in the months following Glanni’s death.

And somehow the curse had planned for it. His body never decayed, staying perfect and nearly-living inside the glass coffin that had shown up one day. The day after that, the rest had shown up.

If it wouldn’t put them in more danger, Robin would have long since marched into the forest and retaliated against the fae for even daring to make his daughter cry. The smallest coffin was measured to her size and little more, all but promising that she would be dead within a couple of years. Ella, like Glanni before her, was probably right about the poetic part of the curse. It meant nothing and they would end up dead all the same, no matter if they found a heart of gold, a hero.

Heroes didn’t exist, and those who called themselves that were useless.

End of story.


	2. Going Deeper Into The Maze

“Tryggvi?”

His father’s voice brought him out of his daydreaming state, his keys in his hands and his eyes unfocused but pinned on the forest. A few moments before, he could have sworn that there was something moving in the trees. “Yes?”

His father stood in the doorway, smiling. His arms were crossed over his chest and he laughed at his son. “You can take your hat off now,” he gestured around them, then at himself. His pointed ears were almost on display, the hat he wore at the market nowhere in sight. “Your ears are bound to thank you if you do. I have no doubt that they are at least a little bit uncomfortable right now.” 

“Ah,” Tryggvi nodded, then pulled off the blue beanie he had been wearing. It was soft enough, he had made sure of that when he went to find the yarn to make it. “Thank you,” he smiled at his father. The pointed ears they both had were slightly red at the tips, rubbed wrong from being under hats all day.

“Are you alright?”

“I guess I am just-“ Tryggvi turned back to look at the trees again. “I still do not understand why we moved so close to a fair folk forest.” He tracked the movements of the birds overhead, then looked at his father. “And I suppose I am a little distracted.”

“Oh?” his father came to stand next to him, looking sidelong at him, leaning on the balcony. “Is it time for you to go wandering and adventuring like your brother?” he laughed. “You are reaching that age, my son. Your thirtieth birthday is coming up. If you would like to go, you can go. Just be sure you say goodbye to your cousin and mother first, I do not think they would be happy with you if you left without a word.” He reached over to ruffle Tryggvi’s hair, pausing and frowning when he saw the look on his face. “Or are you distracted by something else?”

“There were people in the market today,” Tryggvi’s nose scrunched up, his hands playing together. “They were nice. A father and his daughter.”

“Oh, I see,” the laughter that followed that statement made Tryggvi’s cheeks flush a deep red. 

“No, it’s not- I just mean, I was thinking about them, that is all. The daughter knew sign language well, as if she practiced it every day of her life, but she acted like she had been discouraged to at one point. Her hands were twitching like she wanted to use them to speak but she hesitated.” Tryggvi groaned, shoving his face into his hands. “Why are humans like this? They torment any not like them.”

Understanding, finally, what it was that had distracted his son, his father nodded. “Are they the subjects of those rumors you heard the first time you went?”

“Yes!” Tryggvi shot up again, whipping around to meet the elder’s eyes. “The girls in our neighboring stall kept whispering about them the entire time they were at ours. As if they were not even there or could not hear them plainly and clearly! Robin clearly just adores his daughter. Treats her like she is the best thing in his world. She loves her father. I can think of no better thing than a family that loves and respects each other and the people in the market just act like they’re strange, odd, and possibly monstrous!” he took a deep breath, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Robin is perhaps a little awkward, but…He clearly loves his daughter. Clearly only wants her to be happy.”

He looked up, seeing the flash of pink in the trees closest to them that meant his cousin was outside. 

Stephanie looked up, as if she knew he was looking, and waved. Her hair was down, managing to cover the much smaller points of her ears. Unlike the rest of them, she didn’t need a hat to cover them. Half-elves had an easier time blending in with humans that way. After a moment, she turned back around, staying well within their plot of land.

“Humans can be cruel,” his father’s voice was quiet but steady and sure. “But they can also be amazing. We just have to have faith in them and ignore the ones who would treat others as rumors to spread. Ignore them or educate them.” He paused, both of them listening to Stephanie humming something. She was always making up songs and singing them to herself, sometimes to her friends as well. She was a joyful child, one that Tryggvi was proud to know. She would do well as a hero if she kept pursuing the training for it. As it was, she wanted to be one just like her cousins and uncle. Her human uncle was a mayor a couple of towns over and she looked up to him as well. He was a kind man and she visited him for several weeks each summer. Her human half was probably where her constant curiosity came from. “Humans are complicated and they can be cruel, but we cannot control them. We must do as well as we can to teach them, educate them on differences and getting along despite them.”

“I know,” Tryggvi smiled. “That is what the heroes are for.”

“The Numbered exist to help usher in peace,” his father nodded. “We are simply there to help them along.”

Tryggvi sighed, putting his hands in his lap. “I just…” he trailed off, his ears twitching when he realized something sounded off. It was too quiet. “Stephanie?” he called out, looking as far into the trees as he could. When she didn’t respond, he jumped off the porch, wandering over to the forest. His father followed him, concern suddenly etched across his face. “Stephanie, please answer.”

There was a quiet scream from deeper in the trees.

“Stephanie?!” Tryggvi heard his father call from off to the right. His cousin still didn’t answer and there was no sign of her in the underbrush. No pink hairs snagged on trees or bushes, no torn scraps of pink fabric. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that she had gone into the woods, other than the direction her startled scream had come from. 

Tryggvi cupped his hands around his mouth, feeling desperation rising in his chest. Stephanie was only eleven. “STEPHANIE!”

They all heard her scream again, from deeper in the woods. Tryggvi watched his father snap his head around, his blue eyes peering into the darkness. The trees they were standing under, they belonged to the land their house was on. The ones it sounded like Stephanie had been dragged into?

Those belonged to the Fae.

With a glance at his father, his mother, the entirety of his family that had split up and gone to the edges of the property, toeing the line of the forest, Tryggvi swallowed nervously. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. It had barely fully left his lips when he started running. Pitching and crashing through the forest and the underbrush, nearly slamming his own head on a tree branch that seemed to come out of nowhere.

His feet barely touched the ground as he sped up, his arms pumping at his sides.

He could feel the magic in the earth, the warmth of life and existence and the low-rumble feeling of Fae territory. It was trying to oust him, trying to get him to leave without actually touching him. Tryggvi would almost have bet that they were Seelie. Unseelie, from what he had seen, never showed any hesitancy in attacking, mauling, or killing. Especially those that were in their territory.

Behind him, he could hear his family shrieking his name desperately. He didn’t stop running.

The trees grew bigger, thicker, taller. The encroaching darkness of nighttime blinked into the full dark of midnight as if the moon and stars had been snuffed out. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, he could barely hear the voices of his family anymore. There was a piece of pink fabric, seemingly ripped from the edge of Stephanie’s skirt, dangling off a thorn bush. Tryggvi narrowed his eyes as he passed it, still running as fast as he could. He wasn’t a fully trained hero yet. His father had retired somewhat young, allowing the family role to go to Tryggvi’s older brother. He himself had come home to train Tryggvi; heroes always needed successors, after all.

But a hero was always a hero, even if they weren’t fully trained yet. 

And right now, Stephanie needed a hero.

The Fae had never been known to be kind to the children they stole away. Tryggvi knew that with as much certainty as he knew that he was going to be a hero. Time would pass and the Fae would one day be bored of the child and they would be put back into the world. Their names would have been forgotten, their family home turned to dust, and all he had ever known of the Fae was that they did not care. Once they had lost interest, it was as if the human had died. Tryggvi sped up as much as he could, panting as he ran now. Stephanie was eleven, he wasn’t going to let that happen to her. She had been born to a human mother, whose brother was human as well. Her father had been Tryggvi’s uncle. 

Her parents had gone off to try and help a conflict on the other side of the world, her father being a hero in training as well. 

Tryggvi was the closest thing she had to a sibling, his older brother had gone off to travel the world and be the current Álfur hero of their family when she was barely walking. He was the one responsible for her, the one who needed to be watching over her. He was the one who-

Was going to fall flat on his face in what was an obviously overgrown backyard.

He pushed himself up, brushing off his front, then looked around. The trees behind him were tightly-grown, like a natural fence. It didn‘t look like he could have come running through them. In the middle of the overgrown plants and flowers was a house, at least two stories tall and painted a strange shade of dark purple. All in all, it was a pretty place, but he was confused as to how he had gotten there. A desperate race through the forest should not have led him to a house at the edge of it. It should have led him to his cousin and bringing her home. 

Maybe this was an illusion?

Tryggvi jumped on the ground a little, testing it below his feet. Leaning down to touch it revealed that it felt like grass. Fae illusions tended to be thorough in everything except texture, meant for looking at but not touching. Like a museum. If you were one of the children they had snatched, you were the next exhibit. Stephanie would suffer under their hold if they kept her.

And they would not be willing to give her back.

 

~

 

Waking up felt weird, like she‘d fallen asleep in the wrong clothes.

Stephanie sat up slowly, pushing her way off the floor and onto her feet. She remembered playing in the yard, wandering into the trees a little, finding some interesting rocks on the very edge of the family property. They had little holes in them, like beads, but they were an odd green color. She had them in her pocket now and she put her hand around one of them, squeezing it tightly. It gave her a bit of comfort, looking around the dark house and seeing shadows everywhere.

“Who are you?”

Turning around, her hair swishing around her face, Stephanie saw a girl about her age. She had dark hair and a purple dress, her eyes glimmering in what little light made it in through the windows. “My name is Stephanie!” she greeted her, doing her absolute best to be kind and courteous. She was scared, a little, and she didn’t know how she had gotten there. “What’s yours?”

“Ella,” the girl stepped forward, crossing the room and standing next to Stephanie. “How did you get in here?”

“I…” Stephanie frowned, curling her arms around herself. “I don’t know. I just woke up here, I live outside a forest, with my family. My cousin and his dad were on the porch, talking and I just…I was in the trees. I could still see them, I was where I was supposed to be, but…”

“But something pulled you in further?” Ella’s face was twisted with a small amount of horror, her hands coming up to do something. They stopped in midair, coming back down to rest at her sides. “The forest outside is a Fae territory. We’re stuck here because of them. I mean,” she looked out the window, frowning as well. “My uncles and I get to go outside during the day, with specific things put into place. We go to the market every week, we like it there.”

“Oh!” Stephanie’s frown changed into a smile. She knew about the market, that was where her family was most weeks. “My uncle and his dad work there!”

Ella studied her face a little closer, then laughed. “Does your uncle sell fruits?”

“Yes!”

“I think I met him this week,” Ella smiled, turning to look over her shoulder at a thumping noise behind her. “He’s nice. But you shouldn’t be here, if you’re here, it means…Here, come with me,” she held out her hand, tangling her fingers with Stephanie’s after a moment and running out of the room. Stephanie followed her, eyes wide as they ran down a hallway and ended up in front of a room. “Father!” Ella called out, tapping her knuckles on the door. 

“Come in, Ella!” someone on the other side called back. 

Ella pushed open the door, tugging Stephanie in behind her. “There’s something new,” she said, her voice soft as she addressed the person on the other side of the room. “This is Stephanie.”

“…What?”

“Father,” Ella caught his attention again, stepping closer once he had set down what he was holding and turned to look at her. Stephanie waved, a little nervous, and tried her best to keep smiling. “This is Stephanie. She woke up in our house and she said she lives on the edge of the forest. I think They dragged her through it and brought her here to change the terms of the curse.”

Her father looked at Stephanie, then back at his daughter, raising an eyebrow. His face was long, his chin was prominent, and he looked like the sort of person her cousin would have liked to draw. Stephanie studied him for a minute, then nodded to herself. Tryggvi would have loved to sketch his face out, at least once, probably more than that. He wasn’t what the girls in town would call beautiful, but he was interesting to look at. “Is there something on my face?” Stephanie heard him ask, nudging her out of her head and back into the conversation. 

“Oh, no,” she reassured him, holding up her free hand. Ella was still holding her other one. “My cousin likes to draw. He would probably have fun drawing your face, there’s a lot of angles and shapes!”

“I…Don’t know how to handle that information.” He blinked at her, grabbing a cloth off the table and wiping his hands off on it. “What’s your name again?” he looked at her, his eyes pausing on the rip in the bottom of her skirt, and he sighed. “And are you alright?”

“Why is that question the second concern?” Ella seemed to scold her father, releasing Stephanie’s hand to put both of hers on her hips. 

He scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest, hunching over a little. He looked nervous and scared and Stephanie thought he looked like he needed a hug. With the two of them talking, she looked around the room, moving carefully around a crowded table. There were mechanical parts on top of it and what looked like a leg made of them. Just past the table was a series of oddly shaped glass boxes in the wall and inside one of them was…

There was a man in one of them. 

He looked like Ella’s father, almost identical except for the shape of his chin and the way his hair was. With his eyes closed and his arms at his sides, he looked like he was sleeping. His chest wasn’t moving and Stephanie watched him for a few more seconds, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. 

“Don’t touch that!” 

Ella’s father was at her shoulder suddenly, looking like he wanted to grab her and drag her away from the coffin. “I wasn’t touching it,” Stephanie looked up at him, a frown on her face. “He looks like you.”

“He does.”

“Why isn’t he breathing?”

“Because he’s dead.”

“He doesn’t look dead,” Stephanie countered, crossing her own arms over her chest and leaning back on one leg, looking up at him. “He looks like he’s sleeping. Dead people don’t look like that.”

“They do when the Fae living in the forest have cursed them into death and left them there to upset the rest of the family,” the man sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Look, who are you? I need to know who is going to come try and burn the house down to get you back. I’m guessing it will be a mob with pitchforks and torches and angry screaming. It’ll be loud.”

Stephanie looked over at Ella, who was perched on the edge of a table and staring at her. “Oh, um…She said you might have met my cousin in the market? He and his dad sell fruits and vegetables and she said you’d met someone who did that who was really nice. That sounds like it might be Tryg-“

A hand was over her mouth. “No true names, child. Not here.”

Blinking a couple of times, Stephanie nodded. “Alright. Stephanie is the name my mom gave me, but my dad always said there was another one I had. Is that alright?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “That should be fine.”

“My cousin was at the market and he sells fruits. He is also the one who likes drawing. I like drawing too.” Stephanie looked up at him, her eyes wide. “What can I call you?”

“…Robbie.”

Stephanie nodded again. “My cousin and the rest of our family was looking for me. I could hear them calling for me when I was being pulled away.” She paused, then sighed. “Robbie, do you think they’ll be able to find me? It’s just that it looks like your house is on a hill, in the middle of nowhere. The view from the front window was pretty, but it looked out over the town. I’ve never seen it from that angle before and it I just thought it looked a lot different. You don’t look like you’re anywhere near the forest.”

“You probably live on the other side of the forest from us,” Robbie tilted his head back, closing his eyes for a moment. He looked upset. It made Stephanie want to try and cheer him up. “The back of our house is to the forest. The plants back there have grown so much that the window is completely covered and based on what Ella told me, you probably didn’t even pass it on your way into this room.” He looked at her, then sighed. “As for getting back home, it’s not that easy, pink girl. There’s a curse on our house, we’re not allowed to leave. I suspect that, since you are in here, it means you won’t be allowed to leave either.”

“Why is there a curse?”

“Because the Fae are strange and territorial and one of them wanted our house when my parents passed away. We wanted to live here because it was ours. We chose poorly.”

A knock sounded from somewhere else in the house and Robbie looked up at the noise, making a face. He looked tired, his eyes surrounded by a soft purple eyeshadow that only barely covered the exhaustion. “I’m going to guess that’s your family,” he looked back down at Stephanie, then groaned and covered his face, peeking out from between his fingers. “Alright pink girl, to the living room. We’re going to try and get you back home-“ his eyes were focused on something on the side of her head and he choked on his own spit. “What- You- You’re an elf?”

“…Um,” Stephanie covered her ear, shuffling her hair over it. “My dad is. My mom’s human and she met my dad when he came into her flower shop.”

“That is almost disgustingly perfect,” Robbie looked like he wanted to say something she shouldn’t hear, the way he bit his tongue was telling. “So you’re a half-elf living on the edge of Fae territory and your family decided this was a good idea? Here,” he offered her his hand, then led her over to Ella, taking one of her hands as well. “Time to try and get you home. I think I know why you got grabbed and dragged into this whole mess in the first place.”

Stephanie followed along, her hand in Robbie’s, and she looked over at Ella behind his back. The other girl was smiling, skipping along behind her father to keep up with his long steps. “Don’t worry,” she said quietly, noticing Stephanie watching her. “He’s just worried about getting you home. He’s a lot more worried than he likes to tell people and it makes him seem scarier than he is, but he’s just trying to keep everyone safe. My uncles all try and keep him distracted from worrying a lot of the time and it sometimes works. Usually, they just make him worry about them even more, especially since, well,” she looked back at the room they had come from. “My other uncle. My father isn’t the oldest. Uncle Glanni was, and now he’s just…Gone.”

“So,” they came to a stop, Robbie letting go of both of them and striding over to the door. “He’s just scared?”

Ella nodded. “A lot of the time, yeah. He built me a mechanical body, so I can attach myself to it and go out of the house once a week. The magic is hard to do more than that, I’m not powerful enough to make it happen more than that.”

“That’s so cool!” Stephanie laughed. “I wish I could bring you to meet my friends. We only just started going to the market and selling things but I’ve already made friends with some of the other kids who come with their parents. There’s Ziggy, the kid from the candy stall. And there’s Pixel, from the one that offers computer repairs and accessories. And, and then there’s Trixie. Her parents sell thrift-shop stuff and antiques and some of it’s really strange, but it’s fun to look through.” Stephanie watched as Ella’s eyes lit up. “Next time you go to the market, you should go see them! I bet they’d like to meet you!”

“Stephanie,” came Robbie’s voice from the door, finally catching her attention. 

When she turned to look at him, he managed a small smile. “Oh, right,” she walked away from Ella, standing next to him. The door was in front of her, Robbie standing a little way back from it. “Do I have to open it? There was something about you not being able to leave the house, does that-“ she cut herself off as Robbie nodded, then took the doorknob in her hand. It was oddly cold, more than it should have been, and she tugged on it carefully, pulling open the door and smiling when she saw who was on the other side. “Hello cousin,” she greeted Tryggvi. His hands were scraped like he had fought his way through plants that didn’t want to be touched.

“Stephanie,” his voice sounded relieved and more than a little shaky and she could tell he wanted to cry. “You’re alright.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, opening the door all the way. “This is Robbie. His daughter was saying he’s trapped here, along with the rest of the family.” She gestured back, pointing out Ella. “They can’t come outside, and Robbie thinks I can’t either.”

Tryggvi immediately tensed up, reaching out to take her hands. “There is a spell,” he said quietly, holding her fingers between his. “It is…Complicated. To free one inside of it, one must replace them. That is the only way anyone would be freed.” He looked up at Robbie, blinking rapidly a couple of times. “Oh, I know you. You and your daughter were at our stall in the market.” He made a face. “…How?”

“Magic and clockwork.” Robbie rolled his eyes. “Do you know how to get your cousin out of our house and back home safely?”

“I do, yes,” Tryggvi pulled something out from under his shirt, unclasping the chord and re-clasping it around Stephanie’s neck. “This will guide you safely home. Tell my father what is happening here, get him to write a letter to my brother. Now,” he took her hands back in his. “One foot out the door, Stephanie.” When she had done that, he put one foot inside, then slid neatly into her place. He let her hands drop, still smiling at her. “Get home safely, little cousin. Tell our family what is happening, get my brother back home to help. I have a feeling we’ll need it.”

“…You just traded places with her!” Robbie made a face, waving his arms around frantically. “What are you even thinking? Now _you’re_ trapped!”

“Stephanie, just get going home,” Tryggvi smiled at her.

“Wait,” she pulled one of the stones out of her pocket, handing it to him. “Just don’t forget, okay?”

“I won’t,” he grinned at her, as reassuring as he could be, before the door swung shut, cutting the two of them off. For a moment, Stephanie stared at the wood, then clutched the necklace her cousin had put on her in one fist. It was his crystal, the one that meant he was a hero in training. If he had given it to her, it meant he was ready to stay where he was for a long while.

She didn’t want to think about the possibility of it being forever.

 

~

 

It was the man from the market, Tryggvi realized as he studied him. Robin, if he remembered correctly.

“Hello,” he said to him, interrupting the panic he could see brewing on his face. His entire body seemed strained, as if he had twisted his worry and fears up inside of himself and it had started showing on the outside. “My name is-“ he paused, then thought better of it. The two in the room with him were wide-eyed at the possibility of a Name. Tryggvi guessed it was because of the proximity to the forest. “You can call me Sportacus. I know we were introduced before, but I think it might be safer if I don’t say my name while I am here.” He looked at Ella, smiling at her. “Hello again!”

“I can actually talk to you here,” she said quietly, her eyes still wide. “Father?”

“Hm?”

“What is happening?”

“Well,” Robin looked at his daughter, then back at Tryggvi. “Sportacus here just let himself be switched out for his cousin so that she could get home. I still don’t know what it means that she was here in the first place, but here we are, here he is, we’re all stuck here together.” He sighed, shoving his hands against his face. “You’ve just put yourself in the middle of a Fae trap, Sportacrazy.”

“Stephanie is eleven,” Tryggvi shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t let her be stuck here instead. I thought the Fae were going to keep her. They do that.”

“Trust me, I know,” Robin groaned.

“If you are stuck here, then how-“

“A combination of magic and clockwork. The rumors in town are more truth than I wish they were. I did not build myself an entire daughter, I built her a body she can project herself into and one for my brothers to do the same with. My family is trapped here and my daughter is trapped here and now _you’re trapped here._ I don’t know w- No, actually, I know why,” he softened for a moment, his blue-grey eyes looking at his daughter with more than a little protective fondness. “If the same thing had happened to Ella, I probably would have done what you did.” He finally looked back at Tryggvi, frowning. “And you’re an elf.”

“Yes,” Tryggvi nodded. “That tends to happen when your parents are as well. That’s just how genetics works.”

Robin shook his head. “A family of elves living on the edge of Fae territory, are you all crazy? None of you seem to understand just how it works. Fae hate elves. The legends say so, at any rate.”

“We grow our gardens away from their territory. They specialize in pretty things, we specialize in useful ones. We thought we had an agreement, we’ve lived there for a few years now.” Tryggvi shrugged. “We only started selling fruit at the market because my father finally fully retired. It is his hobby and Stephanie and I help him. When the school year starts, she will go to school and I will still help him. It’s nice, I get to meet new people.”

Robin shook his head, incredulous, then turned back to look at his daughter. “Ella, please go get your uncles rounded up and down here. I suspect we need to explain what is happening.” He turned back to Tryggvi, frowning. “What did your father retire from that growing, farming, and selling fruit seemed relaxing to him? It’s hard labor, things are heavy, it’s a lot of weight to carry around…What makes that relaxing? Or is he just the same sort of strange as you are, willing to destroy yourself for the ones you love?”

“I suspect,” Tryggvi looked around, making sure Ella had left. “That you would do the same for your daughter.”

“Of course I would,” Robin made a face, throwing his hands into the air. “I would do anything to make her happy and safe. If there was a way I could get her and my remaining brothers released from the curse that _you just put yourself into_ , I would do it in a heartbeat, even if it meant I would be stuck in here until the house rotted around me. If it meant making her happy, I would kill and die for that cause. Her mother passed away not long before the curse was put on us, when Ella was eight.”

“Wait, say that again?” Tryggvi was suddenly fully alert, instead of listening quietly to the man. 

“My wife died when Ella was eight,” Robin nearly snarled it this time, his hands curled into fists. His knuckles were white and Tryggvi wanted to hug him. He sorely looked like he needed one. “Ella was nine when the curse was put on us. All of this fuss for a stupid piece of land and a house,” he shook his head. “You would think that the Fae would have better things to do than torment a family on the edge of the woods. We’re hardly anything important, probably just-“

“Robi-“ at the man’s look, Tryggvi clamped his mouth shut. “Robbie?”

“Yes.”

“I think I know what the truth behind all of this is. I would need to see some things that may be in this house, but I believe I can clear things up for you.” Tryggvi shook his head. “There is no possible way that this is an anger based around a human-built house.”

“What would you need to see?”

“Your family tree, if possible. Genealogy, how long your family has been where, who they were. Deed to the house and property, as well. There are things that are important to know about, and given the situation,” Tryggvi paused, meeting Robin’s eyes. “I would suspect that there is something about your family that you were never told. If there is anything in another language, then that is where my brother returning home would be useful.”

“Why, is he more knowledgeable about these things than you?”

“Yes and no,” Tryggvi smiled at him, trying for reassurance. “But heroes are required to know as many languages as they possibly can. It became a training requirement when my father was still in training, a few too many times of something going wrong because the hero speaking with the ones who needed help not knowing their language. People have nearly died because of that lack before, so it was made a requirement.”

“Your father…And your brother,” Robin looked like someone had smacked him. “Are _heroes._ ”

“Yes.”

“And you’re in training.”

“Yes. Although,” Tryggvi gestured towards the door. “Stephanie was sent out with my crystal. It will get her home safely, anyone wearing it is protected by it.”

“You and the _rest of your family_ are elves and _heroes_.”

“…Robbie?” Tryggvi tilted his head. “Are you alright? You seem to be stuck on the idea, is everything alright?”

“Just perfect,” Robbie was pale, his eyes unfocused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This seems quick but I've spent the past couple of weeks writing this story. I was wrong about 14K, by the way. It currently sits at 15K in my word document.


	3. A Few Minor Setbacks

He was a _hero._

The thrice-damned curse had been useless and misleading except it seemed that finding a hero was possible. Heroes existed, in the sense that they had apparently been formed into an organization of some sort. 

Father to son, perhaps. 

Trained to know languages and help people and Sportacus had said something about his brother needing to be summoned. Robin wanted to scream, just a little. 

Maybe more than a little, actually. In his experience, heroes were fakes. Anyone who called themselves that was a useless, good for nothing, lying asshole. 

The man before him, the elf, the one who had immediately switched over to sign language when Ella had needed it to communicate…

 _Well,_ a small part of him spoke up quietly, _if he’s a hero, then he is a perfect candidate for getting you and your family out of this mess._

No.

“Are heroes an organization?” he heard himself asking. In truth, he wanted to reach out and take the man by the shoulders, shake him until he gave answers that made sense. “Or just a family thing?”

“A little of both,” Sportacus’s smile was cheery, though he still seemed worried about Robin. “There is a council of heroes, people who keep the heroes in line. If someone is found to be mistreating people, then they are stripped of their status. In my family, those who show an appreciation for the duties of a hero are trained. My cousin is intending on being one someday. My father retired from it to spend more time with my mother and to spend some time remembering more of the little things.”

“Such as?”

Sportacus looked uncomfortable and Robin leaned back a little, out of his personal space. Too much, too close, too soon. 

“My father was one of the heroes who went out and tried to stop wars. Tried to help behind the scenes, get the wounded out of danger, bring supplies to families who needed them. He came home…Quieter. Growing things in our garden and selling them at the market, that is as close to the actual elf I remember from when I was young.”“Big conflicts only for the heroes, then?”

“Ah, no,” Sportacus had a hand on the back of his head. “Some heroes do focus on a certain aspect of it, but…Some of us choose a town or a city and we keep that specific place safe. It becomes our home, our anchor.”

“Oh.” Robin studied him a little more, his gaze wandering to the tips of Sportacus’ ears, pointed and pink. They stuck out of his ears. “Have you figured out what you’re going to do?”

“I want to choose a town,” Sportacus smiled, a little self-conscious. “Help a community grow, protect the families I’ll come to know. Above Average Hero,” he laughed a little, his cheeks flushed. There was something almost entrancing about it, his bright eyes smiling, his entire body relaxed. It was obvious that he was happy when thinking about that part of his future. “That will be me. Superhero always just seemed a little…Grandiose. Like taking a title that doesn’t belong to me.”

“…Based on the immediate reaction of saving your cousin,” Robin could feel how exhausted his smile must have looked. “I would say you’ll be good at it.”

Sportacus beamed at him and Robin felt something twist in his stomach. “But first, I need to get you out of here. You’ve been stuck for too long. It isn’t good for your health and it certainly must be worse for your daughter.” He glanced at the door. “Is your daughter alright? It seems to be taking some time for her to collect her uncles.”

“My brothers are strange,” Robin gestured for the elf to follow him, heading deeper into the house. “They don’t always like moving around the house and they’re the ones who actually like trying to keep a normal sleep schedule. Ella herself doesn’t do much better with it, either. None of them are meant for the schedule they’re forced into with this curse. I would be better off with the one they have, I think, but daytime is…I’m awake then. Sometimes. It depends on how I feel that day.”

“A normal sleep schedule is healthier,” Sportacus frowned and Robbie almost wanted to apologize to him.

His late wife had always inspired that sort of mood in him. It felt a little unfair that this man – Elf – should do the same. He was Robbie Glæpur, widower and curse-victim, and he shouldn’t have been wanting to coddle the emotions of some stupid elf who apparently lived on the other side of the forest! The elf and his family were apparently stupid enough to live right next to fae territory. It didn’t matter that he was male, that wasn’t the hang-up, it was more the fact that he was apparently such an idiot that any chance of having a survival instinct was at approximately _zero._

But he had been so good with Ella in the market.

It didn’t hurt that he was handsome and apparently a _hero_. He was seemingly kind and good with children.

Robbie blinked for a moment, realizing he’d been staring off into space. “And someday I would love to have one,” he shrugged. There were footsteps coming down the stairs, four sets of them. If he was hearing correctly, Ella was in the lead, skipping her way across the hall.

When the door opened, he saw that he was right.

Ella gestured her uncles into the room and Robbie could tell immediately that it was going to turn into something akin to a circus. Bobby and Tobby were flapping their hands at each other, talking quickly about something Robbie couldn’t figure out. Flobby was behind them, his hands shaking from how quickly he was signing at them, trying to get their attention without being able to speak.

The only one actually paying attention to him was Ella and she was signing back whenever he looked over at her.

“Tobin- Florens-“ Robbie stuttered for a moment, then covered his face with his hands again. Sportacus was laughing quietly at his side, one hand over his mouth the muffle the sound, but Robbie heard it. His brothers were just going to ignore the presence of someone new.

Wonderful.

Taking pity on him, Ella circled around in front of her uncles, clearing her throat loudly and clapping even louder.

They stopped arguing for just long enough that Ella could point to him.

“Oh, hey Robbie,” Bobby waved sheepishly. “Didn’t see you standing there. Ella said there was something important and Tobby said there was something different feeling about the house and then he and I were trying to figure out what it was and – Oh, hey, he’s new.”

“Yes,” Robbie still had his face covered. “This is Sportacus. He is staying with us for a while. It seems like the curse has been altered a little.”

He finally peeled his hands off of his face. “These three are my brothers, the triplets. Florens is the eldest, Tobin is the next in age, Ruthbert is the youngest.” He waved his hand at them, gesturing to each one in turn. “Flobby, Tobby, Bobby. Nicknames courtesy of a three-year-old Ella who couldn’t say them easily back then. They stuck.”

Ella grinned, waving at Sportacus. The elf waved back which only made her smile bigger.

“Now, if the entire group of you will be somewhat quiet and calm, Sportacus needs to be shown where he can sleep.” Robbie sighed. “Ella, I need to have a quick word with you.”

His brothers agreed almost at once, as in synch as they could ever be. Sportacus followed after them when Flobby waved him over. The four of them wandered back into the deeper parts of the house, probably even towards the underground levels that housed spare bedrooms and the family library.

Both Glæpur’s left behind waited until they could no longer hear any of them.

“Ella,” Robbie knelt down in front of his daughter, taking her hands. “From here on out, his name is Sportacus. We live on the edge of the forest where the faerie who did this to us lives. If she hears his name, she will be able to hurt him. She knows our names already, used them the first time we saw her. But his name,” he paused, licking his lips. “His name needs to remain a secret. True names, the ones we identify as, the ones that are so much a part of us that we could never see ourselves being anything else, they can be used against us. Ours were used against us, do you remember?”

“Yes,” Ella nodded almost in earnest. “But his needs to stay a secret. Or he might get hurt by her.”

“So,” Robbie smiled at her. “Sportacus is staying with us for a while. He might be able to help us. Somehow we got lucky enough to have someone we’d met before be the one to come help us. We were able to keep him from saying his true name when she might be listening.”

Ella nodded again. “Are you going to have this conversation with my uncles as well?”

“Oh, most certainly. True names tell you who says them, where they are when they say them, sometimes even why they are said. Ella, my darling daughter,” Robbie squeezed her hands gently. “Unless you absolutely have to, never say someone’s true name. There is power in it,” he felt her squeeze his hands back. “And so much danger.”

“I understand, father,” Ella’s eyes were filled with so much sorrow these days. “Keep his name a secret, we keep him safe.”

“And our family safer in return,” Robbie smiled. “He might be able to help us out of here. He has magic, he’s an elf. If he’s here to help us, then we might actually have a chance at making it out of here while we’re still alive.” He felt her hands go tight on his again. “Are you alright?”

“Do you think we’ll still be able to go to the market?” Ella looked towards the window, watching the stars appear from behind clouds.

“I don’t think that part of things has changed,” Robbie nodded after thinking for a moment. “That is our loophole. She probably knows about it but if she does, she hasn’t changed it. We should still be able to send you and one of your uncles out, make sure you get some daylight. We’ll have you dancing in the square again eventually, with the rest of your troupe.” He smiled, ignoring the twisting feeling in his heart. No matter what words he said to her, what hopes he was desperately attempting to quell with the change in the circumstances, he still felt like they were all going to die in their home. “That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll have to ask Tr- Sportacus if he has any messages we should take to his family,” Ella’s smile was bright, happier than he had seen her in a long time.

If it meant keeping her happy, he would destroy himself. If it meant his daughter’s happiness, he would march into the forest and hunt down the fae who had trapped them and most recently Sportacus. “Good plan,” he stood up, cracking his back. Ella winced a little, her nose wrinkling at the noise. “Make sure to bring back fruits for him. Elves don’t tend to eat meat.”

Ella nodded, then skipped out of the room to follow her uncles.

 

~

 

He had been in the Glæpur household for nearly a week when it happened.

Tryggvi woke up feeling sick, his entire body sore. His shoulders ached and his spine felt like it was shattering and he wanted to throw up. His hands were shaking, his footsteps unsteady as he wandered to the library. Passing a mirror on the way, he stopped to look at his reflection.

“I think that’s the first time you’ve woken up after sunset,” Tobby’s voice came from further down the hallway. “Are you okay?”

“I do not think so,” Tryggvi shook his head, regretting it a second later when he had to brace himself on the wall to keep from falling over. “I have never spent this long away from growing things and sunlight, I think is the problem. At home, I am always…In our garden…” he faltered once more, dizzy suddenly. “Could I ask for your help in finding someplace to sit down?”

Tobby rushed forward, catching him before he hit the ground, blinking a couple of times. “Here,” he picked Tryggvi up. “We’re goin’ upstairs now.”

“But I needed to research…” Tryggvi felt like his head was stuffed with cotton, his thoughts barely moving. He felt too warm, stuffed into a too-small container. Everything was wrong and time was blurring together. Tobby was a few degrees cooler than him, his own body heat rising like a fever.

When he was aware again, Tobby was fanning his face with a stack of papers, having propped him next to an open window. “We can’t leave,” he said quietly. “But we can open the windows. We’re on the top floor of the house, by the way. Ella’s room is down the hall and she isn’t awake yet, so be a little quiet? I’m going to get you some water. Don’t try to move until I get back with it.”

“But…”

“Please?” Tobby looked afraid. “Just…Stay here. Don’t move. I’m getting you water and whatever fruit I can carry with me.”

Tryggvi swallowed and winced at how dry his throat was. With a nod from him, Tobby went scurrying off, his footsteps retreating quickly. After he was gone, Tryggvi adjusted himself a little, staring out the window. The sun was, as Tobby had said, down already. The moon wasn’t fully up yet but it was getting there.

Just around the window were strands of ivy, the leaves growing full and dark green. The plant itself seemed to reach toward him, as if it wanted to touch him. Tryggvi obliged it, his fingers wrapping gently around the nearest leaf. It felt like it was more alive than anything he’d ever come across, sharing memories of the sunshine with him. Warmth and light and happiness, feeding yourself from the source of life.

He closed his eyes, letting the feel of it wash over him.

Deep within the ivy’s memories was something about a woman with dark hair. Something about wings, the woman with dark hair and gray-blue eyes that looked at her family with a smile that spoke of peace. The wings were dangerous, treacherous and damaging if they got too close.

They had gotten too close.

The house reeked of the wing-wearer.

Tryggvi felt his entire body being pulled into the memories of the plant. It was connected to the overgrown garden at the base, pulling the memories of the other plants into the connection they were holding onto.

The ivy was scared.

The people in the house hadn’t come out in what seemed like an eternity. Tryggvi tried to reassure it, tried to tell it that there was something wrong but the people hadn’t forgotten it. It knew that already, it insisted. But there was the danger still in the trees, the trees themselves were scared. Everything was wrong – He was an elf, didn’t he feel it?

He did, he swore to them. He did, he did.

The house was locked within so many spells and ill-wishes that it was a stroke of utterly dumb luck they were not all dead already. Whoever had cursed them was strong, wanted them all dead.

The plants called out to him, flooding his mind with so many voices that it all turned into a steady river. It was comforting, almost like the garden his family had at home, the trees and plants and everything calling to him. There was more fear in these but they still wanted to comfort him.

They wanted this to be his home.

 

~

 

Sportacus was sick.

Tobby ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time to get to the kitchen as fast as he possibly could. The elf needed water and air and plants and they were all stupid for having put him in the bottom levels of the house. Underground was fine for a couple of nights but they should have known better. Elves were rare among humans but there were enough stories that they _really should have known better._

He had left the elf in Robbie’s room and he made a mental note to apologize to his brother later.

As it was, he needed to get as much water to him as possible. He grabbed the biggest screw-top bottle he could find, the one their mother had used to bring drinks on picnics. Tobby paused for a moment, feeling the outside casing of it under his fingers.

No time for sad memories right now.

He flipped the facet on, waiting until the water was as cold as it would go before filling the bottle. It gave him time to think about what fruits he could take up to the elf. Would he be able to chew?

Would he choke?

Did they have applesauce? Applesauce seemed like the best option, Tobby decided as he closed the bottle. Soft and easy to swallow. Sportacus would probably be able to eat it without hurting himself and he probably couldn’t choke on it. If baby Ella hadn’t had problems with it, a grown elf probably wouldn’t either.

He turned to rummage through the fridge, managing to find about half a jar of applesauce neatly pushed to the back. He would apologize to Ella later, probably buy her more.

Emergencies tended to be emergencies and some things were necessities.

Tobby took a deep breath, grabbing a spoon, the jar of applesauce, and the container of water. He needed to find Robbie, too, to make sure his brother knew why the elf was in his room. It had been another necessity, one of the only rooms in the house where sunlight still touched.

“Tobby?”

He screeched to a halt, nearly falling over. Distantly, however vaguely, Tobby could tell he was panicking but he was the only one who knew about Sportacus being sick and looking like he was dying. No one else had been around and it was only pure luck that he’d been nearby when the elf had collapsed. “Robbie!”

Oh thank the gods, it was his older brother.

“Is something…Wrong?” Robbie looked awkward about asking, one of his eyebrows raised. “You normally don’t bring stuff to your room. Is one of the others sick?”

“…Uh, sort of?” Tobby held up the applesauce. “Sportacus is sick and I don’t know what else to do. Fruit, definitely, have to apologize to Ella later, but water? And fruit and he’s in your room because openable window and plants and air. I didn’t know what else to do?” he tried to take a deep breath, feeling like his chest was being crushed inward. Panic. Not good, panic was never good.

“Hey, deep breath, slowly,” Robbie put a hand on his shoulder, meeting his eyes. He started breathing slowly, motioning for Tobby to follow the example. “Panic never helps.”

“Panic never helps,” Tobby repeated, nodded. He could feel it receding a little as it was, Robbie’s presence enough of a comfort that he could find his own pace of breath again. Deep breaths, always a good idea. “Sportacus is sick. I found him downstairs and he kind of collapsed. I brought him upstairs because he’s an elf and he doesn’t do well without sunlight and air and plants. It seemed like a good idea to put him in your room because it was the only one with those things that wasn’t going to kick someone out immediately.”

“Good thought process,” Robbie congratulated him. “I sleep in my lab more often than not. Come on,” he started walking up the stairs, gesturing for Tobby to follow. “Sick elf, he needs things brought to him.”

Tobby nodded, following him up the stairs and handing him the applesauce and the spoon. “Less choking hazard.”

“Again, good thought process.” Robbie sighed. “I should have thought about it. Elves may not be the most common thing but there are enough stories that I should have…”

“Had the same thought,” Tobby hummed a little. “Should have known better.”

 

~

 

Sportacus was leaning against the wall, one hand sticking out the window when they got to his room.

Robbie wanted to throw something, preferably at the fae that had cursed them. It just figured that the one person who might be able to help them was someone who needed the exact opposite of the setup the entire house was currently in. The elf looked like he was going to throw up.

If Tobby’s steady stream of quiet words was to be believed, the elf looked better than he had when Tobby had brought him up here.

Something twisted in Robbie’s gut when he saw Sportacus blinking slowly, pulled away from the window and the wall so that Tobby could try and get him to drink some water. He drank quite a bit of it in steady sips, his entire body shaking. His movements were sluggish, like how Robbie always felt when he projected himself into his clockwork doll. Slow, unsteady, separated from the normal flow of time. He never really felt sick from lack of sunlight however, not unless he actually focused on the fact. As long as he ignored it, he could get used to the low-grade fever and migraines.

Sportacus had likely spent every day of his life either in the sun or just outside.

Probably even spent the winter playing in the snow. It was ridiculous, considering what was happening, to think of the two of them walking through the snow together. Ella would be wandering ahead of them, possibly even playing with the pink-haired girl that had started the new layer of the curse off. Their hands would brush as they walked, Robbie’s knuckles against the back of Sportacus’s wrist-

No.

No weird fantasies about the elf who might be dying in his bedroom. The elf in question was probably going to find a wife when he went off to be a hero. That was something heroes did, probably. Found a wife and reproduced to create more heroes. Sportacus had said something about it being a family thing. Elves probably reproduced with females of their species or human females to create more heroes.

Had to be how it worked.

And anyway, he scolded himself, handing over the items he was carrying when his brother reached for them. Sportacus had a life elsewhere. He was going to be a hero. He would travel around the world like his father had and tend to people who needed help. He wouldn’t stay in one place.

It would be better just to keep Sportacus as ‘The Elf’ in his head and never think of him as anything more than someone who was getting them out of their curse.

A hero, in short.

Uninvolved, impersonal, just doing his job.

Trying to distract himself, Robbie took a deep breath and looked around the room. There were family history books on the shelves, packed end to end on one wall. Sportacus could do his genealogy research here, couldn’t he? Robbie had moved everything that Ella might want to read about their family to his room after his parents had died. It made it easier to access and easier to read through. There was sunlight in his room as well. There were plants growing on the windowsill, which would probably help Sportacus recover.

It was the darkness and the underground feeling that had made him sick, wasn’t it?

His room was the perfect setup for Sportacus. Books to research in, trying to figure out their family and why they had been cursed. Sunlight, fresh air, plants…

“You can stay here,” he found himself saying. He wanted to add ‘With me’ but he squashed the thought ruthlessly. “You know where the library is and you know how to get around the house. You would have to be quiet during the day if you’re going to stay upstairs. Ella needs to not have nightmares, everything is already bad enough. But you can stay. Here. In this room.”

Sportacus looked up at him, the spoon in his mouth and his eyes wide. “But it’s your room. I shouldn’t take your room.”

Make him think he’s only useful for saving you, it’s the only way you’ll be able to let him go when you’re free. He’s handsome and nice and too good to stay with you. “You have a job you’re doing. It would be easier for you to do it if you’re not collapsing because you’re sick.”

Too nice.

Can’t you say something that would make you seem worse? Glanni would have been able to do it. Glanni had been a criminal, you remind yourself. He had retired when Ella was a baby and your wife started getting sick all the time. He’d come home to help you with your daughter.

Sportacus smiled and Robbie wanted to do everything he could to make that smile stay. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Robbie stepped back a bit. “I’m going to go back to my lab. Don’t worry about using the bed, I have one down there that I can use.” More like a giant fluffy chair, but it worked as a bed. It was comfortable, for the most part. “Ella is going to the market tomorrow. If there is any sort of note you would like to send to your family, write it out and put it in her hands. She’ll know what to do with it.”

Robbie turned to leave, stopping at the door. “And if there’s any fruit you’d like, tell her that, too. The plan was just to buy some for you, but if there are specifics…”

He already knew the specifics. Sportacus had said them the first time they’d met in the market.

He remembered them.

“Good night,” Robbie said curtly, his hands behind his back as he turned on his heel and left.

Oh, he was in trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whatcha doin' there, Robbie? Are you crushing on the elf who decided to come help you?
> 
> I hope you guys are liking the story so far. The word file is at almost 21K words. This is going to be a monster of a story.


	4. Not Without Cost

When Ella woke up in her doll-body, she wanted to laugh.

It was market day. Time to go find Sportacus’s family and tell them about what was happening. She had dressed her doll the night before and nudged it to the door, letter and list in hand. The doll that stood in for her father was next to her and she only had to wait a few minutes before whichever of her uncles controlling it opened his eyes and stood up as well. He took her hand and she signed a hello to him.

They headed out the door together, Ella closing her eyes as she stepped through it.

It always felt like she was doing something she wasn’t supposed to be doing.

They started walking the path to the market and Ella took a deep breath, feeling the mechanical body respond. Wandering around in it always felt like a dream with how removed from eshe was. Like wandering through dreams and never waking up. Talking to people and only hearing odd tones in her head. That was why Sportacus, when she’d first met him, had stood out. For once, instead of someone that felt like a barely remembered dream by trying to speak with her, he had given her his hands to focus on. She could remember what his hands said.

She had a feeling her father and uncles could too.

Whenever uncle Flobby was in the clockwork body, he and she signed back and forth at a rapid pace. If Flobby and Sportacus had met first, it would have been funny.

But she was glad that her father had gotten to talk to him that first time. He had spoken about him later that night, after she had woken up again, and for the first time in what seemed to be ages, she could tell he was happier. The fruit seller at the market, she remembered him saying, was nice. She could infer handsome from how he spoke of the other man.

She was smart and she knew her father well.

With everything that had been going on, she barely remembered her mother. Her mother had been so sick for years, finally passing away and Ella had been almost glad. She remembered that, at the very least. Her sickness had finally ended and she seemed happier when she had closed her eyes.

Her father hadn’t been happy.

Her father had been worried and scared and nearly sick with it himself. To Ella, he was a protector, he stood tall and did his best to keep her safe. Her father without her mother seemed to have lost a part of himself. Glanni had always told stories of her mother having to pursue him instead of the other way around, had always finished the stories with a finger to the tip of her nose and a smile. “You look just like her,” he’d said fondly. “A lot like our mother as well, but the softer cheeks and the shape of your nose? Just like your mother.”

So she was the memory of two different women in one body.

She did her best to carry their memories. Before the curse, she had joined the dance group her mother had run, made her friends there and danced until she was exhausted. It had been her favorite thing. She still saw them sometimes, in the market, unable to say hello and unable to go too close to the studio they practiced in. Her old friends barely noticed her these days, blending in with the crowds.

A hand on her shoulder pulled her out of her own head. “We’re here,” her father’s voice came from the mouth of the clockwork doll he’d built.

Ella nodded, pulling the letter and the list out from where she had put them in her coat pocket. The year was getting colder, closer to the anniversary of Glanni’s death than she would have liked. It meant that the next to go would go soon. If the pattern followed, it would be her father.

She didn’t want it to be her father.

They beelined for Sportacus’s family’s stall. Someone was speaking with the man at the counter when they got there but Ella stood and waited patiently. It was important, the letter she had. Sportacus needed it to go to his family. When the customer finally left, she stepped forward first, waving at the person behind the counter.

He looked almost exactly like Sportacus with the same eyes and a hat covering his ears like the elf had when she’d first met him.

“Oh!” he laughed even though she could tell he wasn’t as happy as he pretended he was. “Hello, little one! I almost did not see you there,” he paused, looking at the letter when she held it out to him. “What is this?” he took it slowly and she wanted to sigh in relief. Now her hands were free, the list tucked back into her pocket, Ella started signing at him slowly. Did he understand sign?

She hoped he did.

‘ _My name is Ella Glæpur,”_ she paused, waiting for him to show any sign he understood. His eyes went wide and he nodded, leaning forward on the counter to stare at her hands. “ _My family is the one trapped in the house on the hill. Tryggvi,”_ she fingerspelled his name, hesitating for a moment, unsure of which letters it used. “ _Switched places with Stephanie. He is with my father and my uncles right now.”_

The man responded with his own sign language and Ella wanted to hug him. _“Is my son alright?”_

 _“We came to deliver the letter and get fruits and vegetables for him. He’s an elf, so he needs them._ ” She pulled the list out of her pocket, handing it to him as well. _“He got sick because the curse on the house keeps us from going outside. It made my father panic,”_

“ _Then how are you here?”_

“ _Living flesh can’t make it out the door,”_ Ella signed back. “ _But we project ourselves into these clockwork bodies and we can wander out into the world for a few hours.”_

 _“Ah, so we are working on a time limit, good to know.”_ He smiled at her, then ducked into the back of the stall, saying something to whoever was back there. A few seconds later, Stephanie came running out of the back, nearly throwing herself across the counter to reach out and take one of Ella’s hands, squeezing it briefly before letting go. “Stephanie?”

“This is Ella, uncle! She was the one who was there when I woke up!” Stephanie waved almost wildly at the Glæpur’s standing in front of her. At her side, Ella could see the clockwork body inhabited by one of her uncles waving back. Her father’s voice came out of it and she smiled.

“If we may speak with you,” his said quietly. “Somewhere more private than this.”

“Of course, of course,” Sportacus’s father nodded, gesturing them around and to the back of the stall through a small opening. When they got to the back, he looked at them both, pulling off his hat in the privacy of the closed-off stall. “My wife and our other son are wandering around the market right now, trying to stay calm. Tryggvi is our youngest and we worry about him.”

“It is understandable,” her father’s voice was still quiet like he was having trouble speaking. “He is doing alright as of right now. There was a minor sickness when it came to not having sunshine and fresh air, but I believe we’ve fixed that.”

“Good,” the elf reached for the hands of her father’s doll and held them tightly for a moment. “Thank you so much. If you could do your best to keep him safe, that would take more worry off of my shoulders than you know.” He turned to Ella and she stood up straighter. Whatever he was going to say, it felt important. The air seemed heavier and she waited. “Thank you for keeping my niece safe,” he said softly. “I can have the items on this list put together in almost no time at all.”

Stephanie was at his side again, holding a different letter than the one Ella had given to Sportacus’s father. “Could you take this to him?” she held it out, her eyes wide. “I want him safe and I was going to bring it to your house and try to slide it under the door. It’s telling him what is happening right now.

Ella nodded, taking it from the other girl. The paper felt like nothing in her clockwork fingers and she pushed it into her pocket quickly.

“Again, thank you so much,” the older elf kneeled down in front of her. “My name is Eírík. If you need anything,” he fished something out of his pocket, holding it out to her as well. “This will send any letter you write directly to me. Just press it against the paper and it will arrive on my desk.”

She nodded again, looking at the sadness in his eyes.

With just a moment of hesitation, Ella leaned forward and hugged him. Faintly, she could feel his hands on her back, hugging her as well, but it was only a vague pressure. “You are a good and kind young lady,” he muttered, pulling away from her and wiping at his eyes. “Keep yourself safe as well, alright? Stephanie told us there is some curse on your house that keeps you in there, you told us yourself of the same, we are trying to figure out how to break it without endangering lives.” Eírík smiled at her, then turned to her father’s doll again. “If there is anything we can do, any answer we can provide, any help we can offer, we will do it.”

He stood up and hugged him as well. Ella could see the shock on his face and she giggled silently.

“Ah!” Eírík laughed, wiping at his eyes again. “These are for you.”

He pulled two packages of something out of his apron pocket. “When Stephanie told us of the girl her age in the house on the other side of the forest, we started gathering things to put into a package to send. My wife and I figured that it would be good to welcome you into our lives. Your uncles as well,” he glanced at Stephanie. “I was told you had a couple of them. These are sweets from the Zweet’s family’s shop.”

Ella grinned at him.

“If you give us just a few minutes, we can have the list of things together for Tryggvi and we can drive you back up to your house. My wife will likely not mind watching the stall for long enough to get you home.” He turned to Stephanie, who was already nodding. “If you would not mind going to find her?”

“I will!” Stephanie smiled, hugged Ella quickly, then ran off.

It made Ella want to be a part of their family. Her own was nice but it was rare for them to be as openly affectionate with each other when it was in public.

Time seemed to flow together from there and Ella felt herself growing tired. Her father had told her once that what they did with the clockwork bodies was something called ‘Projecting’ and that it was hard to do. It would hurt them if they did it for too long, even with how good as they were at it. If they stayed out of their bodies for too long, they might not be able to get back. The thing she was doing was a mixture of projecting and dream walking, allowing her to explore the world during her sleep.

But now she felt tired.

Sportacus’s mother returned to the stall and hugged her as well, helping arrange her in the back of the truck they used to transport things to and from the market. The fruits and vegetables were put in next to her and Stephanie hopped in and sat with her.

She smiled at the other girl, her head resting against the side of the car.

With the excitement, it seemed, she was more tired than she usually was when running around. She wanted to let go of her temporary body and drift back to her real one. She could see Eírík glancing back at her nervously, his face twisted with worry every time he looked into the mirror to watch her for a moment. Her father was talking and she could barely hear the words he was saying.

Eventually, the truck stopped and Stephanie helped her stand up. The pink-haired girl was an even pressure against her side, managing to help her and carry the basket at the same time and Ella wanted to help her, to reach out and carry things, but her body wasn’t responding. When Eírík stepped in and picked her up to walk her the last fifteen feet to the door, Ella groaned. She leaned into him, letting her arms curl against her stomach; she couldn’t feel her feet, a sure sign of the dream-walking coming to an end.

She’d exhausted herself.

The last thing she saw before she left the clockwork body was Eírík looking afraid and turning to call for help.

 

~

 

Robbie wanted to curse, hiding in the darkness of his lab.

Eírík was a kind man, good-hearted just like his son, and he had automatically turned to call for help to get Ella inside. Bobby or Tobby, whichever one was controlling the body, weren’t able to move fast enough for his taste. The body Eírík held may have been just a clockwork version of his daughter but it made him ache to think of letting any part of her be left somewhere. Her eyes were closed and her limbs were lax, a sure sign of her being back upstairs and deeply asleep once more.

He felt himself speaking out of the clockworked version of him and he felt one of his brothers shifting to take her much smaller body into the arms of it.

Since she had been born, too small and too early, Robbie had worried over her. His wife had gotten sick at her birth and just never quite recovered. That in itself was probably part of the reason he worried over Ella so much. She had been raised by him and his brothers, his wife sleeping for most of her days. She had gotten sicker and sicker and just…Never gotten better.

Ella, as they’d decided together, was named after Robbie’s mother.

Elenore Andrea Glæpur.

His wife had passed shortly after Ella’s eighth birthday and the curse had fallen upon them not too long after that. It seemed like a series of the worst events that could have happened to one family. His parents dying, his wife dying, getting cursed, and then Glanni…

And then Glanni.

His brother had retired from a life of crime when Robbie had even hinted at being overwhelmed in one of their letters. His wife had been very sick at the time, worse than she usually was, and Ella had been teething. His daughter screaming at every moment she felt pain and his wife sobbing because of how she had felt and Robbie had just-

He loved them both but he couldn’t handle it by himself.

The triplets had been coming in and out of Ella’s life at that point, working as entertainers down in the town below. Glanni had come home and managed to convince them to do the same, just for a time, until his wife had gotten a bit better. When Rai had managed to make herself get up out of bed, the triplets had cautiously gone back to work and Glanni had stayed behind.

Rai and Glanni had gotten along well.

Something about Glanni’s acerbic wit and Rai’s sarcasm meshed well and they had become good friends. It had been a dangerous day for Robbie, that had been obvious enough from the way they both looked at him. Like they were sharing a secret. They had, actually; Glanni had shared all the embarrassing stories from their childhood and Rai gleefully laughed at all of them, more awake and aware than she had been in months.

The clockwork body made it into the house, as did the basket of fruits and vegetables for Tryggvi.

He felt his brother pull back from it, having gotten to a couch before dropping. The produce could be retrieved later, unspoiled due to the effects of the curse. Robbie pulled away from the clockwork as well, feeling his entire body shift further into the shadows. What daylight he did get, in his lab, was painful to his skin with the way he was shaped during it.

Just like his daughter, he missed the way it felt on his face, the way it had been before.

As he hid in the shadows, he crossed his arms over his chest, left only able to think. Rai had been so full of laughter and good moods when she wasn’t sick. She had been a dancer, just like Ella. It might have been more accurate to say that Ella was a dancer, just like Rai. She’d followed in her mother’s steps and become nearly a master of it at her level.

But that had been before.

Before the curse, before Rai’s death, before everything that had happened to them. Now, Ella was trapped in a slowly falling apart house with her father and her uncles and a glass coffin waiting for her body to be trapped inside of it, dead and unable to decompose. Just like those that had come before her, just as her uncles and father. The curse was cruel in that way, leaving their bodies on display.

…Tryggvi reminded him of Rai.

Robbie tried to stop the thought before it came, tried to push it away and just breathe, but it wouldn’t go. Rai would have approved of the elf, as strange and loyal and odd as he was. He was kind to Ella and if he acted even one bit like his father, he would be a good hero.

He had said something about wanting to choose a town and stay there, hadn’t he?

Tryg- Sportacus wanted to be a hero to a singular place. Not to a stretch of cities, but to a single one so that he could watch the community within it grow and help nurture them. Help them learn to plant foods and grow gardens and how to be heroes in their own right…

That last part was a mostly unconfirmed possibility, deducted from the elf’s half-crazed rambling when he and Tobby had been feeding him applesauce and water.

Robbie leaned carefully out of the shadows, biting his bottom lip.

What if he chose his hometown?

Something in Robbie warmed at the thought. If the elf chose their town, his hometown, as the city to be a hero to, then Robbie would see him. Possibly often. Especially if the curse was broken.

Rai would have laughed at him before kissing him on the cheek and sending him to pursue the elf.

His wife had always known about him liking more than just women. When she had started getting sicker, worse than before, shortly before she had died, she had encouraged him to move on. To find someone else. It had hurt, the idea of her being gone and him finding someone new, but she had told him to be happy. She had made him promise.

She had made him promise to be happy.

Well, he thought as he shrunk back further into the shadows. He had failed her in that promise. If she were a vengeful ghost at this point, she would have come along and haunted him until he changed. Between the loss of her and the curse, Robbie hadn’t found much time to be happy.

Would Sportacus make him happy?

The man was handsome, seemed to be kind and brave and was at the very least somewhat intelligent. Maybe a bit of a hero complex? But he was training to be a hero, so that was expected.

What if the faint swell of emotions Robbie could feel building in his chest was only attached to the idea of Sportacus freeing them?

What if he only liked him for bringing a possible ending to the curse?

That was why he couldn’t pursue him.

He didn’t know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to tell me how I'm doing? What you thought?
> 
> Please do. I like hearing from you guys.


	5. Never Forget (I Would Give You My Heart And Soul)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **::EDIT::** https://sportarobbieaesthetic.tumblr.com/post/165094931550/two-things-one-i-hope-you-all-appreciate-how  
>  A drawing I did on my SportaRobbie side blog. Warning: Spider. Robbie has a spider body. It has creeped some people out, so just...Proceed with arachnophobic caution.

Tryggvi swallowed nervously, looking at the doors of the library.

It was the first time he had come back downstairs since he had collapsed. Robbie had very kindly let him move into the man’s room, where there was as much sunlight as he could possibly get during the day. Fresh air and sunlight and such other things. With a deep breath and a nod, Tryggvi pushed open the double doors and walked back into the library.

The shelves were tall, twice his height, and the ladders for them were pushed neatly to the sides, out of the way as much as they could be.

He ran a hand over the rungs of one as he passed, breathing in the scent of books and stale air. There were no normal clocks in the library, so he would have to be careful about how much time he spent. There was something that looked like the sun, the light of it reflecting how much sunlight was left outside. Too long in the library and the tomb-like qualities of it would overwhelm him once more.

Too little and he might not find what he was looking for.

The dust stirred around his feet with every step he took and it made him want to run. To see how much of it could be unsettled by his movements, to dance and run and jump through it until it was all floating through the air. It would play hell and havoc with his lungs but it would be worth it to see how much came up and to make the room feel even slightly alive again. That was the problem with the Glæpur house; everything either felt sluggish and slow or it felt dead.

Tryggvi sighed, finally making it to the center of the room with the dust swirling in his wake.

Taking several deep breaths as he sat on the table that stood there, Tryggvi closed his eyes, his hands in his lap. There was something he needed to find. Handwritten ink pages always were a little easier to find than printed ones. Spells could pick up the difference and find whatever handwritten books were hidden in the library. After all, the one he wanted to find would likely be big.

Thick, possibly leather-bound.

Family history, family tree. Anything that could point to why the Glæpurs had been the ones cursed. If there was a land agreement that had expired in the eyes of the Fae. If there was something, anything really, to explain. Robbie and his brothers, Ella as well, none of them deserved to spend the next few years trapped in the house while they slowly died off. The brothers because they were good people, if a little strange. Ella was a child, she didn’t deserve to be included in whatever curse had been laid on them.

So Tryggvi cast the spell out, pushing with his entire mind, determined to find it in what seemed to amount to catacombs.

He followed the tendrils of his own magic, dust kicking up in his wake, and he turned around corners. Each one seemed to reveal more books, more tomes of knowledge. Each shelf held more information than some people would see in their entire lifetime. Tryggvi followed the spell to a dark alcove, pausing at the entrance to it.

The spell was urging him forward, it had found a book with shielding spells on it. The book, he could just barely see, was heavy-bound and leather. The spine of it shimmered but he couldn’t tell if it was his spell or the book’s own shielding.

Whichever it was, someone had wanted to hide it.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he entered the alcove and pulled the book down.

When he gently opened it, the spine protested. It made Tryggvi wince a little but he kept at it, leafing through the old pages slowly. The first page was written in French, which he understood the basics of. It told of the bloodline coming together.

Basics of hiding something: Put it in another language.

Tryggvi left the alcove, moving to the center of the room and settling back in at the table. The pages were written in different languages, every fifth page switching from either French, Icelandic, German, or…

If he was not mistaken, there were bits and pieces of Fae.

Never a full page, never enough for him to identify it, but it looked like Fae. The way the letters were shaped seemed to be Fae but he did not have enough skill with the language to tell from such small sample sizes. When he was a third of the way through the book, roughly, he found a family tree. At the bottom of it was Ella’s full name: Elenore Andrea Glæpur. Above her was Robin Einar Glæpur and Rai Sigurdsson. Off to the sides were Robin’s siblings.

Above them were their parents.

Above that, however, there were only entries for the family on the side of Robbie’s father. His mother’s family line, according to the tree, began and ended with her. That couldn’t be right, Tryggvi realized as he stared at it quietly. Families didn’t only ever have one person in them and then that was the end. Either someone had omitted it or the person making the family tree hadn’t known to write her family down.

It only felt like an hour or two that he spent down in the library, but when Tryggvi finally looked up from the book, the sun-like device said it was nearing dark.

He bundled the book back closed and took it with him as he left the room, placing it by the door on his way out. It would make for easier finding it the next time he came in and he had already learned so much from it. The book was a history of the paternal side of the Glæpur family, the side the name itself had come from. He paused, looking at it where it sat on the ledge near the door before he picked it up again and continued on with it in his hands.

There had been nothing more of the maternal side of things.

Then again, humans rarely marked down fae bloodlines. If Robbie’s mother had been a fae like Tryggvi now suspected she had been, her bloodline would not be recorded in very many places. It only served to confuse the issue, making his head swim a little. He had somehow been in the library for five hours without realizing it.

Dutifully, Tryggvi tromped back up the stairs and towards the room he was staying in.

Was the hallway always this long?

Pausing, Tryggvi blinked a couple of times. He didn’t remember it being this hard to find Robbie’s room. He had managed it a couple of times before, without help from the others. Between time passing oddly in the library and managing to get lost in the hallway now, Tryggvi could almost swear-

Something tugged at the edge of his awareness and he turned on his heel to face it.

He found himself in front of a door he hadn’t seen before. It had a pink tassel draped on the knob, a matching button glued where a lock would have been if it’d had one. On the other side of the door was magic that felt familiar. It wasn’t the magic he could feel circling around the Glæpur siblings, wasn’t their strange twists and turns.

Was this Glanni’s room?

Looking down the hall for a second, Tryggvi reached forward and tried the handle. It turned easily under his palm and he pushed gently. The door opened smoothly and he stepped in its wake, footsteps quiet and slow.

The first thing he noticed was that everything was pink.

Somehow, it didn’t come as a surprise. Robbie appeared to be somewhat in love with the color purple, as was Ella. The triplets loved various colors of their own as well. That the one he hadn’t met had a favorite color as well was something he should have expected.

It was, however, the yellow papers sticking out of a book on the bedside table that caught his attention.

He recognized that paper.

When he got closer, he recognized the handwriting as well. He had enough time to read the address on the front of the envelope the first letter was tucked into before he heard a voice.

“What are you doing in Glanni’s room?”

Tryggvi looked up to see Bobby, papers in his hands. “This,” he held them up gently, being careful not to mangle the edges of them. “These are letters your brother received.” He swallowed nervously, watching the other man come closer. “I got turned around in the house and I felt familiar magic coming from this room. I did not know it was his room.” He let Bobby pull the top letter off the stack. “The magic on them is my own brother’s. The paper is yellow, not with age but dyed to be so. My brother has yellow stationary and the magic is his,” he met Bobby’s eyes, feeling like he was going to collapse. “Do you know if Glanni was in contact with anyone when the spell was cast?”

“…It was a long time ago,” Bobby frowned, reading the first sentence of the letter. “Ella was still nine when this all started.”

“Ella is eleven, yes?”

“Yeah…Yeah…”

Tryggvi felt his heart racing. “My brother went off traveling almost two years ago. I remember him being…I remember him writing to someone. He never told me who, but he did tell me that they were sort of a friend of his.” He almost laughed, worry on his face. “He had to leave not too long after that. Wandering Heroes, they…They wander.”

“It’s what they do,” Bobby scoffed. For a moment, he sounded like Robbie.

“This is Fae-speech,” Tryggvi muttered, running his fingers over the pages of it. “I am not nearly as good with it as a written language as I should be. But this combined with,” he grabbed the genealogy book he’d found earlier. “This…We should be able to piece together the reasons of this curse.” He looked up at Bobby. “There is a theory I have. About your family. I suspect there is a different history than whatever it was you were told if you were told at all.”

Bobby snorted, then covered his mouth. “Glanni was always the one who was researching our family history,” he said quietly, his tone shifting into something more somber when he said his brother’s name. “He said that our mother had brought it up before the…The accident. He spent a lot of his time in here and in the library, trying to find something.”

“That might have been this,” Tryggvi tapped his thumb on the cover of the genealogy book. “I found it under a concealment spell in the library, tucked into a dark corner. It was hard to find for me and I was raised with my magic.”

“And Glanni didn’t know any at all,” Bobby sighed. “So he couldn’t have found it anyway.”

“I should go speak with Robbie about this,” Tryggvi stacked the books and the letters, looking towards the door. “I want to discuss this with him before I start laying out what may have happened for the rest of you. My line of thinking is that he is the second eldest. If there were family secrets, he might know them and be able to tell me what parts of my theories are out of place.”

“It’s dark out,” Bobby pointed out. “You’re awake during the day. You might wanna get some sleep.”

“Oh,” Tryggvi looked out the window, then at the clock on the wall. Bobby was right; it was half-past nine. He had only entered the library around three in the afternoon, after spending the morning looking through the books in Robbie’s room, but it seemed he had run out of time for the day. The moment he had it pointed out to him, he suddenly felt exhausted. “I should get some sleep,” he yawned, holding the book and the letters to his chest. “I will talk to Robbie in the morning.”

“…Is that a good idea?” Bobby looked concerned for a moment, eyes wide. “Robbie gets cranky during the day.”

Tryggvi shrugged, quietly giggling. “Robbie seems to always be cranky.”

“Alright.” Bobby led him out the door, gesturing for him to go ahead of him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He walked him down the hallways, passing the thing that Tryggvi had thought was the landmark he was looking for earlier. With another hallway came the right landmark, nearly identical, and Tryggvi sighed. “Yeah, I know,” Bobby grinned at him. “Almost a maze, right?”

“Yes,” Tryggvi nodded. “That was how I ended up in Glanni’s room in the first place.”

“I can understand that,” Bobby nudged open the door to Robbie’s room, smiling at Tryggvi when the elf walked in and set the books on the desk. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, Sportacus. If you can, I mean. I know you keep a daytime schedule and all, but…Yeah.”

“I will do my best,” Tryggvi smiled back at him.

“I mean, what with you and Robbie and you bein’ sweet on him and all…” For a moment, Bobby looked mortified, his eyes wide and startled and he slapped his hands over his mouth. “Sorry! Sorry, shouldn’t have said that out loud.”

Tryggvi blinked a couple of times, his mouth suddenly dry as he stared back at the man. “…How did you…”

“Your aura turned all pink and red and stuff for a bit, but only when you were talkin’ about him,” Bobby hurried to explain, his own cheeks flushed. “It’s how I knew you were confused about the hallways, too. Your aura looked all confused and- And-“ he bit one of his knuckles for a second. “…I’m sorry,” his shoulders curled in towards his face. “I didn’t mean to read that far into it, I just saw sparks of the colors of romantic stuff and I was curious and I know I shouldn’t have been, but…”

“Bobby,” Tryggvi sat a little straighter on the bed. He was still tired but the immediate exhaustion was gone. “Never be ashamed of that, alright? That is a wonderful power! Just be good with how you use it and try not to pry too much.” He hesitated, then sighed. “And you’re right.”

“…What?”

“I do like Robbie.” Tryggvi smiled. “I think your brother is a good man, even if he doesn’t seem to think so all the time. So your powers are aura reading, knowing emotions, Robbie’s seem to be inventing and creating, even when there shouldn’t possibly be a way for it to work. What about your brothers?”

“…Glanni was always really good at making people believe him. Especially when he changed outfits and told them he was someone else. A hat could make them think he was a different person entirely.” Bobby was back to smiling, so Tryggvi counted it as a success. “Flobby never could talk in the real world but when he walks through dreams, he’s a bit of a chatterbox. Tobby is…Somewhere between mine and Flobby’s abilities.”

Bobby paused, then nodded. “He’s also a lot better about feeling emotions and being able to deal with them than I am.”

“That sounds fantastic,” Tryggvi told him. “I am guessing, but did you and your brothers use your powers as children? To talk in dreams and to know what was happening with the others?”

“Yeah,” Bobby nodded, swiping quickly at his eyes. He was still smiling even with tears building up. “Mom and dad were driven to almost the ends of their patience because they thought Tobby could talk and just didn’t want to. He would come into our dreams and ask us to do stuff for him, help him with projects or just play with him.” He swallowed, obviously having a hard time keeping himself calm. “And I…I sort of let it out about you because I think you’d be good for Robbie. I know it might sound weird, but you’d be good for our family and for him. Robbie hasn’t smiled this much since Rai died.”

“Oh?” Tryggvi smoothed out a wrinkle across the bed. “You guys talk about me?”

“You’re the most interesting thing to happen to our house since we got cursed in the first place,” Bobby nodded. “Of course we do. Robbie’s cheeks go all pink and he smiles and he sort of hunches over. It’s easy to tell he’s a little embarrassed, but he hasn’t smiled this much since she died. We haven’t talked to him about you being romantic with him, we’re not going to tease him – or you! – about that.”

“Thank you for telling me these things, Bobby,” Tryggvi felt like his heart was going to burst, it was so full of happiness and excitement. Robbie, according to his brother, seemed to like him? Him? He had been turning over the details about the man since they had first met, trying to figure out why he had felt drawn to him. “Ah,” he looked at the clock, worrying at his lip. “It is nearly ten, I should try to get some sleep.”

“Goodnight Sportacus,” Bobby hurried out the door, closing it behind him.

Tryggvi took a deep breath, letting himself flop bonelessly onto his back. Robbie might like him. He giggled, covering his face. Robbie might like him! His entire body felt like it was floating and he stared up at the ceiling.

Robbie might feel the same way about him as he felt about the man.

It took Tryggvi quite some time to fall asleep.

 

With the sun in the sky again, Tryggvi woke up and left the bedroom.

“Alright,” he said quietly. He was at the top of the stairs, at the beginning of the hallway. Just looking down it was a bit dizzying, like he was trying to keep his eyes crossed while also blinking one rapidly. His stomach even felt uneasy. It felt as if he were being shaken, up and down and all around.

He took a deep breath through his nose, then bent down and untied one of his shoes.

With a glance down the hallway again, Tryggvi sighed. “I think I am correct,” he whispered, turning his sock inside-out. With that done, he looked up again and grinned; the feeling of being tossed around had stopped and he could look down the hallway without his mind trying to rip itself in half.

Faerie magic.

It was the most basic of protections, turning an article of clothing inside out. Very easy to get out of trouble if you remembered to do it in time. Wanderers had often gotten lost and never found again because they hadn’t remembered.

The inside of the Glæpur house was acting like Faerie Woods.

Like Fae territory.

It certainly gave credence to his theory, Tryggvi thought as he laced his shoe back up. He retrieved the books from the top step and walked down the rest of them. He needed to speak with Robbie, tell him about what he had discovered. The more he discovered, the more he realized the curse was not about the house.

The curse, it was seeming more and more likely, was about the land it was on and the people inside of it. Warring Fae without a war being held between the courts was rare, but it did happen. Maybe the Glæpur matriarch had been a Fae of somewhat high standing and another had gotten jealous?

He still wasn’t sure, but he had his theories together and he had the research to go with it.

Hopefully, he could get the Glæpur family free within the year, maybe even the next couple of months.

Tryggvi held his head up high and knocked on the door to Robbie’s lab. After waiting a couple of seconds, he opened the door and stuck his head in.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” Robbie’s voice came from the shadows across the lab. “Not during the day.”

“Oh,” Tryggvi blinked, holding perfectly still. “Am I going to ruin any experiments of yours if I am? I apologize, I did not know.” He peered into the shadows, seeing something move. They were magically enhanced, that much was obvious. Robbie was hiding near the wall, what little bulk his thin body had pressed tightly against it. The shadows around him were oddly dark, thicker than they should have been, and Tryggvi wasn’t able to see through them.

Robbie growled quietly and Tryggvi heard something scraping against the wall. “No,” he sighed and Tryggvi knew he was rolling his eyes. “My experiments won’t be ruined. But I think you’ll stop trying to help my family if you see what I look like in the morning. It isn’t pretty.” More scraping noises followed and Tryggvi stepped a little closer, noticing the webbing in the corners of the room. “Stop it! Don’t come any closer!”

“Robbie, I think I know why you and your family were subjected to this.”

“…What?”

“I came to speak with you because I knew you’d be the only one awake right now.” Tryggvi smiled, hoping that Robbie could see it from his shadows. “I got lost on the upper floor of the house, somehow found my way into a room I did not recognize. Bobby found me in there but only after I found letters with my brother’s magic all over them. Robbie,” he held one up. “My brother was exchanging letters with yours. I will not know for certain until I get ahold of the other half of the conversation, but I think…Robbie, I think your family is Fae. Ella was eight when the spell was cast, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Eight is generally how old someone is when Fae courts decide on matters of inheritance. Robbie, I think you had a child and the courts decided to give you and your siblings the inheritance due to you from your family,” Tryggvi laughed a little. “I do not think this whole curse was about a house and some property at all. You were the first to reproduce, you were the ones due to inherit. Ella was important in all of this because she was the proof necessary for proving everything was…” he paused, running his hand back through his hair. “Robbie, I think the person who cursed you is a cousin of yours. They were likely angry and jealous, due to your human half.”

Robbie’s laugh sounded dry. “What, so we got cursed because of something we didn’t know about?”

“Yes,” Tryggvi nodded, holding the letters to his chest.

He heard something shift again and he sighed, jogging across the room. He made it within several feet of Robbie before the other noticed. “I told you, don’t!” the screech came out of the shadows, a skittering noise following. It sounded like what Tryggvi imagined a giant spider would sound like. “There you go again, Sportaflippity-floppity-loser, getting into something you shouldn’t and it’s just-“

“Robbie,” Tryggvi put his hands behind his back. “Could I see you outside of the shadows?”

He waited patiently, nearly giggling when Robbie sighed again. “Fine,” he snapped the word out, biting off the end of it. “But it isn’t my fault when you scream and panic. Try not to be too loud, alright? Loud noises give Ella nightmares.” He shifted again and Tryggvi’s eyebrows rose when he saw a leg appear out of the darkness. It was a spider’s leg and it was followed by several others. Robbie’s body had been altered to look like a Drider but his arms bore the distinctive spikes of a praying mantis. His face was pulled and twisted, mandibles at the bottom set underneath eight eyes in the gray-blue color that every member of the Glæpur family seemed to have. There was sharp fur coming down from his sideburns and from his hairline, making him look like a werewolf beginning their transformation. On his back were three sets of wings, each of different shapes that Tryggvi knew to be common within the fae community.

“Oh,” his almost winced when he heard the awestruck tone in his own voice. It was certainly a mishmash of features but there was something endearing about his eyes. “Robbie, why would I scream?”

“…Because I’m a terrifying monster?” Robbie gestured down at himself.

Tryggvi reached up to his face, pausing for a moment to allow him to pull away, then settled his hands on Robbie’s cheeks. “Robbie, you are still lovely whether you look like you would expect or not. Standards of beauty are different for everyone and if I…” he paused. “If I were to scream at the sight of you, what sort of person would I be?”

“A sensible one,” Robbie snorted, adjusting his mandibles so that they weren’t pressing against the heel of Tryggvi’s hand. “One who didn’t enter into a weird house to save his cousin and didn’t- Oh, wait, I think I’m thinking of someone not you. Possibly seeing someone else in my head? Someone not you, because you are a self-sacrificing dunce sometimes.”

“Seeing-“ Tryggvi jerked back, patting almost desperately at his pockets, remembering to set the letters down this time. “Seeing…” he put his hand over one of his back pockets, laughing when he found the lump there. He stepped away from Robbie, pulling whatever it was out and holding it up to his eye. “Seeing!” he laughed again. “I almost forgot I had this! Stephanie gave it to me when I switched places with her, it is a Hagstone. They are used to protect and ward off things, as well as seeing _true forms!_ ” he pulled it away from his face, grinning at Robbie. “You are supposed to have some of those features, Robbie. Not all of them, but some.”

“…Which ones?”

Tryggvi stepped closer to him again, leaning up to run his hand gently along the purple set of wings, ignoring the brown-feathered ones and the dragonfly wings. “These, for one thing. And,” he pulled back a little, tracing under two of Robbie’s eyes. “These. The eyes in general, I mean.”

Their faces were only a few inches apart.

Robbie stuttered for a few moments, all of his eyes focused on Tryggvi. The elf looked up at him, eyes wide, his hand cupping the curve of Robbie’s cheek again. Robbie’s hands were hanging awkwardly in the air around his waist, almost like he wanted to grab Tryggvi and pull him closer. “I…” he swallowed nervously, nudging the elf back a little. Both of their faces were bright red, Tryggvi’s ears flushed as well.

“Well,” Tryggvi nodded at Robbie. “We know what you’re supposed to look like.”

“That’s good,” Robbie blinked a couple of times. All eight eyes blinked. Tryggvi wanted to hug him and hold onto him and keep him safe. It was good that they were so close to figuring out the curse and how to get the family free from it. Robbie could go back to his life and Tryggvi would return home. They would end up with a happily ever after, everyone would be safe and happy. Ella would go back to dancing and school and Robbie would return to being the inventor he had been before. The triplets would probably return to being entertainers. Glanni could finally be put to rest, his body buried in whatever family plot the Glæpur family had. “I wish I could ask my parents where these features came from, but…”

“You said there was some sort of accident,” Tryggvi nodded. “There are always things we wish we could undo and things we wish we could ask the departed.”

“Right now, I would settle for asking Glanni why he was writing letters to your brother.”

“Right, yes,” Tryggvi nodded, then stepped to Robbie’s side, still a bright red color. “I would like the answer to that question as well.” He picked the letters back up, flipping through them slowly. “These are just the ones that I found on his bedside table. They were sticking out of a book and they looked important beyond just feeling like my brother’s magic. Did your parents…”

“They never mentioned anything about this,” Robbie shook his head, his mandibles clicking.

“It happens sometimes,” Tryggvi tried to reassure him. “Magical children don’t get told of an inheritance if the people it’s coming from are running from something. Or if they themselves never knew. Did one of your parents ever seem out of place among humans?”

Robbie scoffed, his eyes closing as he followed it with a sigh. “Here,” he crossed the room, rummaging in a cupboard for a minute before coming back to Tryggvi. It was hard not to notice that the cupboard he’d pulled the thing from was the one closest to Glanni. When he noticed Tryggvi watching, Robbie shrugged. “It just makes sense to keep all of my family in one place,” he said quietly. “But here. Photo album.” He flipped it open, glancing over each page for a moment before he went to the next one. “My mother,” he held to book lower so that Tryggvi could see it. “She lived to be in her sixties before the accident that killed both of them.”

In the photograph he was pointing to was a woman who looked an astounding amount like her sons. Her hair was dark, even though her husband had a mixture of grays and white. Her face was mostly unlined save for a few around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes. She looked to be at least twenty years her husband’s junior and Tryggvi frowned. It was clear she was older than she looked, however, considering the cake with candles proclaiming her to be turning sixty-four.

“Everyone just thought she aged well,” Robbie laughed bitterly. “But if you’re right…”

“Then she was at least half fae,” Tryggvi shrugged one shoulder. “It isn’t a bad thing to be. Being a fae will extend your lifespan and it will grant benefits to your family and you.”

“So my daughter is going to be exactly like me,” Robbie made a noise, closing his eyes and jerking his head to one side, a second noise following that sounded distinctly pained. “She is going to suffer this and more, in all likelihood. If the bloodline is still strong enough that her being born and raised was enough to trigger an inheritance, then she is stuck the same as me. My brothers will go through this same thing, would be going through it right now if they were awake during the day.”

Tryggvi stopped himself from reaching out to Robbie. “…Was Glanni ever awake during the day?”

“No.”

“Just you, then,” Tryggvi looked up to study his face for a moment. “Only ever you awake during the day. That seems lonely.”

“You may have noticed I don’t do well with people,” Robbie deadpanned. “Alone is how I prefer to be, excepting my daughter and sometimes my brothers. I have less than four months until the second year is finished and done and I get put into one of those glass coffins. If the pattern of going after the next in line continues, that is.”

“You do not have to be alone,” Tryggvi smiled at him. “And I have already promised to help break the curse.”

Robbie shook his head. “You did, yes,” he swallowed nervously.

“And?”

“What?”

Tryggvi sighed. “You seem to have something in your head saying that there is something wrong about…Something.”

“Once you’ve helped us, you will leave. You are a hero, untied and free to fly into the wind and save the world. It is what you do, it is what you will do, and you would never-“ Robbie closed all of his eyes and looked away. “When you are done here, you will leave.”

“…Will I?” Tryggvi looked up at him.

“Of course you will,” Robbie shot back, stepping away from him. His legs tangled a little and his altered form drooped towards the floor before he regained his balance. “You’ll find some woman who sees how attractive you are and you’ll have children and continue on the bloodline of heroes.” For a moment, his eyes were unfocused as he stared off into nothingness. “And I will be here, too long in the face and too pointed at the jaw and I will be left alone. You offer a light in the darkness and I almost want to follow it but you are far out of reach.”

“But-”

“And I know what I look like in the daytime,” Robbie cut over him, still refusing to look at him. “Spiders are ugly to most people. A human sized one is bound to be even uglier.” The entire time he spoke, he was retreating. From the looks of it, he was going to hide in the shadows again and ignore the world until it was time for his normal body to emerge from the cursed form.

“Robbie,” Tryggvi rushed forward and caught both of his hands. When Robbie looked down, Tryggvi looked up at him, meeting his eyes. “I don’t care what you look like.”

“…What?”

“You’re saying your chin is too long and your form in the daytime isn’t anything beautiful to look at. To me,” Tryggvi put his hands on the taller man’s hips. “You’re a very caring father and a rather sweet man. You would let yourself be doomed if it could save your family and you…You care so much for the ones you love. You expend magic every week so that your brothers and your daughter can still see the world. You could be the strangest looking person in the world and you would still be beautiful because you care so much for everyone you know.”

“Not everyone,” Robbie made a face. “You’re looking too far into it, Sportadork.”

Tryggvi laughed, leaning up to nudge their foreheads together. “Robbie, you just…You are beautiful. Even if you do not think so, I do. I’ve been a hero in training since I was a child and I’ve seen some of the people around the world who were praised for their looks and then they had the worst personalities. It only made them ugly. I know what you look like,” he pulled back, still holding onto him. “And you are not ugly.”

“Just wait until you see me around some stranger, trust me, I become nasty and bitter and-“

“Why are you afraid of this?”

Robbie flinched back a bit and Tryggvi thought he understood. “Your wife.”

“She died when Ella was eight, it isn’t her. I’m just…Not good enough. For any of this. For someone to come along and see me and want anything to do with me,” Robbie shook his head. “Of me and my siblings, Glanni was the pretty one. People in town regularly commented on it. I’ve always been the miserable, nasty one. People like you don’t find people like me and want anything to do with them!”

“Why not?”

“Because people like you are good and kind and heroes and people like me are dark and awful and villains!”

Robbie stepped back, pulling himself out of Tryggvi’s hands. The elf reeled a little, nearly falling over without the contact between them. “Robbie,” Tryggvi reached out, gently putting the tips of his fingers on the back of Robbie’s hand. “Robbie, you aren’t awful. You aren’t dark. You aren’t the villain. The only villain I know of in connection to you is the fae who did this to you.”

“…You really think so?”

“Robbie,” Tryggvi had to laugh a little, smiling as he met his eyes again. “If you were the villain, I wouldn’t be here right now. If you hadn’t been standing near the door when Stephanie opened it, I would have bombarded it with as much magic as I could and reached in to grab my cousin from the wound in the curse before it sealed back up. I watched you in the market. I know your brothers were the ones controlling the body but you were the one to speak to me. You were, from what I saw that day and every day I have been here, the kindest person I could hope to meet. Ella adores you, you’re her father and she talks about you constantly!”

“That’s not-“

“When your brothers are upset about something, I only need to ask about you and they’re suddenly smiling and telling me a story about something you did for them and how…” Tryggvi shook his head. “Do you not know how good you are? Oh, someone should have told you a long, long time ago. You, Robbie Glæpur, are a good person, even if you can’t see it. You give your family everything you can give them, you’ve given me as much as you can in the situation we’re in.”

“You needed something to do, I couldn’t just let you sit in silence when you were figuring out the mess we’re in!”

“Robbie,” Tryggvi pulled him closer again, holding his hands. “Knowing someone will be bored if they’re left alone isn’t reason enough by itself to give them access to your personal library. You gave me entrance into your bedroom to save me, but you let me read the books you loved the most.”

“I am a somewhat dubious person,” Robbie muttered. “And it helps you out.”

“Nothing else?”

“I…The family library is full of dusty old books our parents collected. Some of the sections of it haven’t been touched in years. It’s underground and we should be taking better care of it, but it’s boring down there.” His shoulders rose a little higher, meeting the bottoms of his ears. “And it helps that you’re…You. Attractive.” Robbie let go of Tryggvi’s hand for a moment to flap his own at him. “You’re exactly the type of person I would see as a hero. I didn’t believe in heroes before you came into my life and even if I had known about the council of heroes or whatever it’s called, I still wouldn’t have believed in them.”

“What about me is a hero?”

“Well, for one, you keep trying to find the good in someone like me,” Robbie put his hand to his chest, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.

“Why do you think there isn’t any?”

Robbie’s eyes were tearing up. “Because I let this happen to my family! If I were any sort of good, I would have been able to stop it.”

“That isn’t your fault,” Tryggvi shook his head, pulling Robbie in for a tight hug. “None of this is your fault, this is someone else looking at you and deciding to hurt you. Their fault, not yours, _never yours._ ” He cradled Robbie against him, even when the taller man’s magically-altered legs seemed to give out and he dropped to the floor. He was shaking now, sobbing like the world was ending. “None of this is because of you,” Tryggvi whispered. “And when I find the one who did this to you, I am going to destroy them.”

“What?”

“Did you think I would stop at simply breaking the curse?” Tryggvi laughed a little, his chest heaving as he clung to Robbie. “I will find the person who did this to you, to your family, and I will not stop until they have been properly dealt with. They will do this to no other, not ever again.”

Unable to come up with a response to that, Robbie pressed closer to him, hiccupping quietly as he continued to sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo hoo, long chapter! 
> 
> Anyway, have some Sportacus being confused and a little worried. And some Robbie having emotional issues. And doubting the fact that he is anything attractive to our favorite elf.
> 
> Just...Enjoy? 
> 
> Tell me if you did? I know I've been gone for a little while on this story, but it just did not want to get written.
> 
> (Also: Did you see the hint of events to come? Glanni's room has yellow letters in it.)


	6. Once Upon A Dream

Things were calmer after Robbie had broken down in front of Sportacus.

It was like a dam had broken, or maybe even like a storm had finally passed. Whatever it was comparable to, they had grown closer. Robbie turned his head to see Sportacus sitting on the table nearest to the window, soaking in the sunlight. There were books open and sitting all around him. In his lap was a closed book being used as a hard surface for him to write a letter on.

His hands, graceful and almost delicate, were pressed against the paper, a pen dragging over it to form words to ask for help.

A letter to his brother.

With the surprise of letters from his older brother to Glanni, Sportacus had decided to reach out and ask him for help. He was decent enough at translating the language in the older books he had managed to find but, he admitted when Robbie had asked him, he was not the best. His brother had chosen it as a language focus in his training, apparently intent on being a hero for Fae as well, not just humans.

Sportacus had also managed to extend the reach of the shadows for Robbie to wander around in comfortably.

Half the lab was in darkness now, even while maintaining visibility. The spell would retreat when the sun went down. He was certain now, he thought as he managed to get his current set of eight legs to work together and move him across the room. He liked Sportacus.

If he weren’t afraid of saying it, even to himself, he would admit it was more than that. The elf was kind and good and sweet. He was a hero in every classical sense and more, and he thought of those around him before he thought of himself. Robbie watched him push some of his curls out of his face, brushing them back absently.

He wanted to hold him.

For the first time in a long time, Robbie wanted something for himself. He wanted Ella to have her sunlight back, he wanted his brothers safe and happy, but for the first time since the curse had swallowed them, he wanted to have something for himself. Sportacus was someone he wanted in every way he could think of.

And it helped, a little, to know that the elf wanted him, too.

“There we go!” Sportacus smiled and pulled the letter from the hard surface, rereading it quickly before he looked at Robbie. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Robbie nodded. His wings twitched and he settled against the ground at one of the other tables, sorting slowly through some of his old designs. “Is the letter ready? I didn’t even think to ask, before, but how are you going to send it?”

Sportacus’s grin was almost devious for a second as he folded the letter into a paper plane. “The letters that Gl- Your brother received, if you look closely at them, have folds in them. Even when you set something on top of a folded piece of paper, the folds will remain. One of the first things we are taught, as heroes, is how to send a letter to someone.” He hopped off the table, brushing his thumb over the wing of the plane. “If someone needs some reassuring words,” he looked at Robbie, a hint of shyness in his expression, and his smile softened. “Or if we need to contact our family, or the family of someone else.”

“So…How?”

“Well,” Sportacus gestured to the windows. “Not down here, since those do not open anymore, but when I get to your room. I use a minor spell to tell the paper to find my brother. It flies until it does. The spell also keeps it safe from the weather and from anything else that may bring harm to it.”

Robbie studied the paper plane for a second, then nodded. “That seems like a good idea, actually. It would also explain how we never saw our brother receive any letters.”

“Some people keep secrets,” Sportacus shrugged, still looking up at him. “Your brother probably did not mean to keep any of the bigger ones from you. My brother never told me about the secrets he kept, either. I suspect your brother is one of them.”

“…Glanni was a criminal,” Robbie clasped his hands together. “He was used to keeping secrets. Sometimes it was all that kept him alive.”

He paused, hesitating.

They both felt for each other, he knew that now, but it didn’t feel like it was enough to simply know it. Robbie wanted to say the words out loud, pledge devotion and commitment and all sorts of other things, but something held him back. If he were human-shaped at the moment, it might have been easier. For all of Sportacus’s reassurances about not caring what he looked like, Robbie still held tight to his doubts about it.

Spider-people weren’t exactly pretty, after all. Especially not with three different sets of wings.

“You should go send the letter,” Robbie said at last. “Sooner is probably better.”

Sportacus nodded, reaching out to put a hand on his elbow and pull Robbie’s hand towards him, kissing the back of it quickly before giggling and walking away.

“You are ridiculous!” Robbie called after him.

“I know!” came the gleeful response followed by more giggling.

With a small smile of his own, Robbie turned back to his designs and hummed quietly, his cheeks a bright pink color.

 

~

 

Tryggvi climbed the stairs, watching the floor carefully.

Ever since he had started wearing a sock inside-out, the house had stopped confusing him. Since he had realized that was necessary, he hadn’t gotten lost and he hadn’t gotten in the wrong place. He hadn’t lost track of time in days.

Truthfully, he wasn’t sure if that last one was because he spent as much time as he could with Robbie now.

The Fae was a strangely good way of keeping track of time, especially when Tryggvi structured his days around him. From the time he woke up to around noon, he spent in Robbie’s room. Researching and breathing as much fresh air as he could. From noon to dark, he spent his time with Robbie. The man was funny, full of dry wit and off-beat humor, and it only endeared him to Tryggvi all the more.

Tryggvi giggled again, entering Robbie’s room and heading for the window.

His brother would hopefully recognize the letter even without the customary blue stationary. Closing his eyes for a moment and summoning the long-since-memorized spell, he sent the plane flying out the window. With luck, Íþróttaálfurinn would receive it within a few days and make his way back home. Tryggvi was doing his best but it was sometimes nice to have back up in situations like this. He loved Robbie and he adored Ella and the triplets were kind, but he was in over his head when it came to the magic keeping them trapped.

He paused, blinking a couple of times.

He loved Robbie.

Without question, without torment, without any sort of hesitance, he loved him. It had just creeped up on him without him noticing. Tryggvi put his chin in his hands, bracing his elbows on the windowsill. It was better to compose himself out of sight before heading back downstairs to Robbie. If he went immediately, his face would still be flushed and he would probably say something that would embarrass him.

A tap of a pebble against the window startled him out of his thoughts and Tryggvi looked outside.

Íþróttaálfurinn stood there, holding the plane and waving up at him.

There was a small curl of unease in his gut as Tryggvi waved back before he bolted out the door and down the stairs again. “Robbie!” he called out a second before he hit the door to the lab, pushing it open as he kept moving. “I…My brother is apparently _here,_ ” he explained quickly, seeing the hair on Robbie’s current body standing on end. “I am going to go see what is happening.”

“How are you going to speak with him?”

“The door still opens. I can sit in the doorway and talk with him from there.” Tryggvi looked out the window, spotting a brief glimpse of the yellow his brother wore. “I may also have a spell or two prepared, since I am…Unsure why he is here right now. I sent the letter out the window and then he was right there.”

“Your father may have some part in that,” Robbie nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“If you want to,” Tryggvi smiled, taking Robbie’s hands in his own. “You do not have to if you do not want to. My priority for you is to keep you comfortable and happy, as best I can.”

Robbie nodded, pushing up and off the ground, nearly falling sideways for a second before catching himself. “May as well. He might have a better idea of what is happening if he sees one of the effects of the curse with his own eyes.” He kept holding Tryggvi’s hand as they walked and it made the slight panic in Tryggvi’s chest unwind.

The front door was already open when they got there, Íþróttaálfurinn on the other side.

“This is…An interesting spell,” he said slowly. “Little brother, what have you gotten entangled in this time?”

Tryggvi sighed and helped Robbie settle on the floor before he turned to face his brother. “There is a curse on the family of this house,” he began slowly. “How did you get here so quickly? I had only just sent the letter, I was expecting a response in a few days, not immediately.”

“I was already on my way,” Íþróttaálfurinn glanced at Robbie, his eyebrows jumping towards his hairline. “Faðir wrote me a letter of his own, explaining some of the troubles. As I did not have any current engagements to keep me where I was, I recalled myself to home to help out my litli bróðir. He said something about-” Íþróttaálfurinn took a deep breath, looking at Robbie again. “He mentioned the Gleæpur family. I…I have a previous connection with them.”

“You’re the one who wrote to my brother,” Robbie said it softly but Íþróttaálfurinn still reacted like he had been shot in the chest. “Sportacus found the letters a week ago.”

“So, you are Robbie,” Íþróttaálfurinn took the cue of Tryggvi’s title being used. “We were never introduced properly, I saw you once the day I met him. Your daughter, I believe, was looking for things for her birthday.”

“Ella has always been particular about her birthday,” Robbie smiled at the mention of his daughter. “That was the year this all started. I guess it is somewhat fortuitous timing, then, that allowed you to meet Glanni. And I should thank you, actually. For coming so quickly. A fully trained hero, out saving the world, I know we are not exactly the first priority.”

“A hero is supposed to save people,” Íþróttaálfurinn shook his head. “Even if it seems odd and out of the way, we are supposed to save people. As many as we can.”

Tryggvi smiled at Robbie, watching the Fae calm down a little more. “The rest of the family is cursed to sleep until dark,” he explained to his brother. He hesitated, then decided not to bring up Glanni just yet. Íþróttaálfurinn needed to be clearheaded and as much as he hated not telling his brother something that important, it felt necessary to keep it from him for now. “Ella and his brothers.”

“With him being the only one awake…” Íþróttaálfurinn frowned, putting a hand to his chin and stroking the ends of his mustache gently. “That seems targeted.”

“Very much so,” Robbie nodded. “But none of us know why. Well, I suppose there has been some idea, considering the books that Sportacus has found in the library. My mother’s handwriting is still familiar to me, even when writing in a different language.”

“A different language?”

“Fae,” Tryggvi nodded when Íþróttaálfurinn’s eyes landed on him. “Her personal journals are written partially in Fae and some other languages. I am alright at translating, but I know you are better.”

“Which is why you were writing me a letter,” Íþróttaálfurinn filled in the rest of the events that had followed. “You wanted my help with translations and figuring out how to end the curse while keeping them all alive.” One of his knuckles went into his mouth as he stared off into space, thinking. “I can not enter the house, can I?”

“The curse would try to keep you,” Robbie answered.

“And no one can come out. Unless someone else switches in.” Íþróttaálfurinn sighed. “I went home before coming here, Stephanie told me about you taking her place in the curse. Smart, litli bróðir. Very smart. Foolish and dangerous, but very smart. Oh,” he paused, taking something out of his pocket. “Your crystal.”

He tossed it through the door and Tryggvi caught it, cupping it in his hands and sighing as it whispered to him, a part of him he hadn’t realized had left such a big gap. “I sent it with Stephanie to get her home safely,” he explained, his eyes slipping closed as he put it back around his neck and tucked it under his shirt. “The forest was dangerous for her that night.”

Behind Íþróttaálfurinn, the sky was growing darker.

Robbie fidgeted where he sat, likely feeling the change in daylight coming. “Can you help us?”

“Of course I will,” Íþróttaálfurinn looked at him, eyes wide. “My brother is dedicated to helping you, I am a Numbered Hero, so I am dedicated as well. We will get you to safety Gleæpur. You will not be left in this house forever.”

Something felt off.

Tryggvi stood slowly, almost not hearing his brother calling his title out, and walked to the plant covered window. The vines were almost crying as he walked closer to them, insisting that there was danger. His crystal was pulsing against his chest, the glow of it shining through his shirt. “Something is coming,” he whispered, putting his hands on the windowsill.

The spells woven into the house gave a shriek and it felt like an earthquake underneath him and that was all the warning he got.

He felt the ground being pulled out from underneath him when he heard Ella shout, “DADDY!” before screaming.

Robbie jerked to his feet, nearly falling on his face as he started heading towards the stairs. He did end up flat on the floor, reduced to two legs in between moments, his wings sucking awkwardly into his back again and leaving him shaking. Tryggvi ran to his side, grabbing him arm and helping him get upright as magic sparked at his back and Íþróttaálfurinn came running from behind him.

The entire house was screaming, the spells snarling almost audibly about the wound in them.

“Ella!” Robbie shouted up the stairs, trying to fight his body into working order. His legs were limp and he was still trembling, leaning into Tryggvi’s side for support. “ELLA!”

Tryggvi kept him upright for a moment before he leaned down and picked him up, sprinting up the stairs and towards Ella’s room. “Íþróttaálfurinn,” he called out ahead of him, stopping just in time to avoid slamming into one of the triplets. “Íþró!”

“It is not good,” Íþróttaálfurinn stepped out of Ella’s room, his face pale.

Tryggvi felt when Robbie’s trembling grew worse, his chest heaving as he tried to actually breathe. “Is she-” Robbie’s eyes were wild, his knuckles white where he held onto Tryggvi’s shirt. “Please tell me she isn’t…Please,” tears were building in his eyes and Tryggvi would have given anything to keep that from happening. “ _Please,”_ he whispered, looking at Íþróttaálfurinn.

“There is no body,” Íþróttaálfurinn started slowly, looking at Robbie, then at Tryggvi. His own eyes were wide, one hand clenched into a fist where it hid at his hip. “I see no blood, I see no body, there is a hole in the wall and the spells on the house have been ripped apart. I would presume to allow her to be taken.” He pointed to the bed, where a dress was set out. “She wakes up when darkness falls, gets dressed for what is now her day?”

“Yes,” Robbie looked at the dress, swallowing nervously.

“Something grabbed her in the minute after she woke up, then,” Íþróttaálfurinn nodded slowly. “I will find her. Sportacus said that the forest was dangerous, how so?”

“It…The shadows are deep and likely to tear you apart if you stay too long,” Tryggvi filled in the missing information for his brother. “Fae territory, through and through. I went running through them to get Stephanie back,” he adjusted Robbie in his arms, thinking. “The spell was targeted, we are almost certain the Gleæpur family is Fae.”

“Sometimes, within families, there are power struggles,” Íþróttaálfurinn looked at Robbie again, then behind Tryggvi. “The triplets. We have met before. Sometimes, with Fae, there is jealousy over something gained by a family member.”

“So, you are saying,” Robbie shuddered as he breathed in. “That a Fae took my daughter?”

“In all likelihood, yes.” Íþróttaálfurinn looked back out through the broken wall. “Sportacus, we need to go. Robbie, stay here. Your body is still not working quite right and whoever did this is likely the one who cursed your family in the first place.”

Tryggvi nodded, turning to settle Robbie onto Ella’s bed. “Please,” he whispered to the Fae. “Stay here. I will bring Ella home to you, I promise. I need you to stay safe, please-”

He was cut off by Robbie grabbing the sides of his head and dragging him in for a kiss. When he pulled away, Robbie’s gray-blue eyes were so filled with terror that Tryggvi almost wanted to let his brother run off along for the sake of reassuring Robbie. “ _Please,_ ” he whispered, still nose to nose with Tryggvi. “Please bring Ella home. Please bring my daughter back to me.” He let go hesitantly. “Please return to me as well. I fear I have come to need you in so many ways. My daughter is the most precious thing I have ever made, you are-”

He swallowed, clasping his hands in his lap. “ _Please.”_

With a nod, Tryggvi stood up straight and watched as Íþróttaálfurinn climbed out the hole in the wall and onto the grass. One last look showed Tryggvi the triplets converging on their brother, holding onto him and keeping him distracted as Tryggvi followed Íþróttaálfurinn.

He would find Ella and bring her home.

Or he would die trying.

Robbie had become the most important thing in his life and the fear Robbie had shown proved that it was the same for him.

“Hold on, Ella,” Tryggvi whispered as they reached the edge of the forest and ventured in. “We will find you.”

 

~

 

Ella felt cold.

She had been pulled out of her room through the breaking wall and now she was someplace she didn’t know. When she opened her eyes, there were trees all around her, blocking out the light of the moon that was above her somewhere. She knew it had to be, otherwise she would not have been awake. Her nightgown wasn’t thick enough to keep out the cold that seeped into her body from the ground underneath her.

Was this how Stephanie had felt the night Sportacus had come into their lives?

Ella shivered, rubbing quickly at her arms. Was anyone going to be able to find her? They were all trapped inside the house still. Her father probably had just changed back to his actual body. She had never seen the spider one but he had told her about it.

Her uncles would be upset when they woke up and found her gone.

What if no one ever found her?

The woods stretched out around her for miles and she heard a river flowing somewhere in the distance. From what Sportacus had told her, no one really walked through the woods anymore. If anyone found her, it was likely going to be ages from now. It wasn’t going to be her alive and well, either. If someone found her, they would find her skeleton and she would never see her father or Sportacus or her uncles again. She would be cold and gone and dead and alone for so long.

Managing to stifle a whimper, Ella moved next to a tree and curled against it, covering her mouth. What if the thing that took her was still around? Would it hear her?

Would it eat her?

Her shoulders began shaking and Ella started crying, trying desperately to hold back her tears.

“I think that’s enough, Elenore,” the soft voice came from the shadows and Ella startled, tucking her skirt around her a little tighter, shivering in the absence of the sun. “Why look at you, the mirror image of my sister. I was ever so sad when I had to take her life.”

The words were followed by a fake sniffle of sadness.

“But she had children. I could keep that under a veil of secrecy, our family didn’t think to check humans for shared bloodlines after all.” A woman stepped out from the shadows, the dress she wore trailing after her feet. She looked like she had come from a fancy dinner party or something. Ella recognized the style of clothing from somewhere but she couldn’t think of where. “And then one of her children reproduced. You were born. My sister lived with her brood on the edge of the forest, always close to home. Her own mother had been human, you know? Our father had met and fallen in love with a human woman and that marriage produced my sister.”

“Who are you?” Ella managed to speak up, her eyes wide.

“Do keep up, child,” the woman kneeled down slightly, still imposingly tall over her. “I am your aunt.”

“…You’re the one who cursed us,” Ella scooted away from her, her heart starting to race like it wanted out of her chest. “You were at my birthday and you cursed us! Uncle Glanni got in your way and you threw him!” she remembered now, the strange woman who had shown up just after Ella had blown out the candles on her cake.

“You may call me Lisbet,” the woman spoke over her like she hadn’t said anything at all. “It isn’t anything near my true name, so you cannot use it against me.”

“I want to go home.”

“Oh, dear child,” Lisbet waved a hand at the forest around them, the shifting shadows and the gnarled trees. “Your great-grandfather was a Seelie. These are the woods he was raised in, the ones he gained when he was old enough. Your grandmother, my sister, was set to inherit them. That never was very fair, but the truth remains: You are home.”

“No, I want to go home!” Ella rushed to her feet, jerking back and away from Lisbet. “I want my father and I want my uncles and I want Sportacus because he’s an uncle as well! You aren’t family, you scare me and you’re mean and you’re the reason uncle Glanni is dead! His body is still in the house because you cursed us and he can’t go away because of it and the coffins in the walls are measured to us and I WANT TO GO HOME!”

“That is _enough_ ,” Lisbet’s voice turned harsh and she was immediately in front of Ella, grabbing her by her upper arm. She dragged her a few feet, then sighed. “I tried to be kind, I tried to be sweet, but if this is how you are going to repay me…”

“Let go of me!” Ella struggled against her, nearly losing one of her shoes when she kicked at her.

“No! You are going to be my child from this day forth! When they see that I have a child, I will be the rightful owner of this forest, the people in the town below will bow to me and I will control their crops!” Lisbet was snarling now, the beautiful woman she had made herself look like sliding off like a sheet of ice. Underneath were several pairs of eyes and a mouth full of pointed teeth. “I will finally get what I was owed by our stupid Seelie father as his eldest child and the mistake that was my half-sister with her human mother will FINALLY BE PUT TO REST!”

Her grip on Ella’s arm tightened and Ella sobbed as her nails punctured flesh.

“Sportacus!” she called into the trees, hoping wildly for any help she could get. “Sportacus, please!”

“No one is ever going to come take you away from me!” Lisbet shrieked, pulling Ella up by her arm. Her feet were dangling off the ground by too much of an amount to be comfortable and she started kicking again. She nearly landed one foot on Lisbet’s knee but the fae had the sense to pull it back at the last moment.

In the middle of her struggle, Ella managed to have a clear though.

True names.

Lisbet wasn’t her true name and her father had told her that fae of every type were able to be called by their true names. Sportacus wasn’t his true name either, he’d introduced himself as something different in the market. Elves were a type of fae, weren’t they? Would the rules work the same for them?

Oh, she had to try.

With as much strength as she could, Ella drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs. She probably only had one chance at this, she had to do it right. Pushing her face away from Lisbet, trying to give herself more time, she screamed out “ _TRYGGVI_!”

Lisbet howled, grabbing for her face and abruptly letting go of her arm, catching her around the middle. She squeezed the moment her hands were around Ella’s ribcage, making the girl shriek in pain and try to get free once more. It was less successful this time, her feet kicking uselessly as she tried to escape her great-aunt’s hold. Neither of them noticed the sounds of crashing coming from the trees, Ella too busy trying to breathe and Lisbet too busy trying to kill her.

Something came flying out of the trees, smashing into the side of Lisbet’s head and causing her to flail wildly. Ella was flung into the air.

She was caught by someone, pulled immediately against them in a warm hug. “Ella!”

Ella clung to them; she knew that voice. “Sportacus,” she let him pick her up, curling her against his chest. His eyes were wide, bluer than she had ever seen them, and he looked scared. “Is my father alright?”

Sportacus laughed a little, poking the tip of her nose. “He is just fine,” his hand came to rest on her back and she felt a wave of tingling warmth rush through her, relieving pain as it went. “He would be asking the same of you if the situation was reversed. He is just fine and now you are safe and that particular fae is never going to bother you again,” he pulled her back from his face a little, so they could see each other better. “Just keep looking at me, alright?”

“But she’s still-”

“When this fight is over, my brother will come introduce himself to you,” Sportacus promised her. “But for now, we should stand back so that we continue to stay safe. I believe I have a package to deliver to your father,” he jiggled her a little, resettling her in his arms. “One daughter, mister Glæpur, please sign here to acknowledge you’ve received your mail.”

Ella laughed, then laughed even harder when her ribs didn’t hurt from it. “But will your brother be alright?”

“He will be,” came someone else’s voice on her other side. Sportacus looked over to see them, smiling, so she smiled as well. “My title is Íþróttaálfurinn. You can call me Íþró until we are out of these woods.” His smile was even bigger than Sportacus’s, his clothes a mixture of golds and browns. “When we are out of the woods, I will tell you my name. Very clever, by the way.” He glanced at Sportacus. “Using his name to get his attention. We were already in the woods when he heard it. We were going the wrong way, following a trail of magic she seems to have put into place for that very purpose.”

“True names are dangerous,” Ella recited dutifully. “Father told me. He also told me that they can catch the person’s attention and make them know where you are.”

“Your father is very smart as well, very clever,” Íþróttaálfurinn was holding something in his hands. It looked like a small ball, glowing a terrifyingly bright pink. “She is never going to bother you again. I’ve got her trapped in here and there is a Court process she must go through.”

“Court process?”

“She belongs to the Unseelie Court,” Íþróttaálfurinn nodded, tucking the ball into a pouch he had pulled from his pocket and tying it shut. “These woods are Seelie territory.”

“…She said she was my aunt,” Ella let her voice be quiet, afraid of what might happen.

Íþróttaálfurinn looked at her, his smile going smaller. “Then she can be seen as having a vendetta and she should never have been trying to claim these woods as her own. They belong to the Seelie clan, not an Unseelie one. Anything she has done was done…” he shook his head. “She may be related to you, but she was using that relation as justification for what she has done. None of you deserve this.”

“Oh,” Ella reached out to pat his cheek. “I remember you.”

Looking startled, Íþróttaálfurinn blinked a couple of times. “What?”

“You were friends with uncle Glanni,” Ella shrugged, leaning her head down against Sportacus’s shoulder. She was suddenly really tired. “Before he died. Before we got-” she yawned. “-cursed.”

She didn’t hear what he said to her after that, falling asleep.

She knew she was safe.

 

~

 

Íþróttaálfurinn watched the little girl for a few seconds, the rise and fall of her back as she slept on his brother’s shoulder.

“Glanni is dead?” he whispered.

“Part of the curse,” Tryggvi shook his head slowly, doing his best not to wake Ella up. The curse had been ripped apart and she had been dragged outside during a time she was normally just waking up. Ella needed her rest, she was still a growing child. “His body is in a glass coffin in Robbie’s lab. The coffins showed up one day, one for each of them. Sized perfectly for them.”

“One for her as well, then?”

“Only a hand taller than her height,” Tryggvi nodded this time, adjusting his grip on the girl. “They’ve been stuck in a house with his body for nearly two years.”

“Oh, gods above,” Íþróttaálfurinn was horrified. “A corpse, rotting away for two years in plain sight? What sort of trauma must that have put this girl through?” he almost wanted to pull the fae out and scream at her, shake her until she apologized and then kill her himself for good measure. Glanni was dead.

Glanni was gone.

He almost missed what his little brother said after that, too wrapped up in his own head. “No, not rotting away. It looks as if he is sleeping,” Tryggvi seemed too calm, didn’t he know how important Glanni was? “His body is perfectly preserved, no decomposition and no damage.”

“Wait, what?”

“You’ll see when we get back to the house.”

Íþróttaálfurinn watched as Tryggvi brushed Ella’s hair out of her face, checking her over carefully as they walked. “Is she alright?”

“She seems to be,” Tryggvi answered after a moment, cradling the girl closer to him. “I was so scared, so…So terrified. Íþró, she is all Robbie has left besides his brothers.” He looked up and Íþróttaálfurinn saw the fear that still had him clenched tightly. “I used a pulse of healing to get rid of the bruises. And I think there was a few fractures in her ribs.” He glared down at the orb Íþróttaálfurinn held. “That Fae held onto her too tightly. It hurt her.”

“…I have a question for you,” Íþróttaálfurinn met his brother’s eyes again.

“Yes?”

“When you get Numbered, are you going to stay in town as a local hero?” Íþróttaálfurinn gestured around at the forest surrounding them. “It seems as if this place needs someone looking after it if this is what happens when there are no heroes assigned.”

Tryggvi was silent for a few minutes as they walked, his gaze focused on his sleeping bundle. “When I was younger,” he said after a time. “I would have said no. I wanted to follow in your footsteps, in our father’s footsteps. I wanted to be a Numbered Hero for the world at large.”

“And now?”

“Now…I want to stay in one place,” Tryggvi looked up at him, sighing gently. “I want to be around to watch this town thrive. In particular, I want to stay and watch Ella grow up, I want to be with Robbie. I fell in love before I left and there…I want to be a hero. I do. But I want to stay with them. Or have them stay with me.”

Ella snuffled in her sleep, one hand coming to cling to Tryggvi’s shirt.

“She must have trusted you a lot,” Íþróttaálfurinn pointed out. “To call for you, specifically. I would have thought her father would have been the one she called for.”

“I promised her, one night, that I would always come to save her,” Tryggvi smiled. “I told her that she could be any age and I would still answer if she needed help. Her father would come running, but I promised her I would as well.”

“Does she know about her father’s change?”

“Yes.”

“Smart girl, then,” with a smile, Íþróttaálfurinn looked at Ella. “She must have figured out that her father would be too hindered to help right then, so she called for you. Her father would probably move the world to come to her side but if he couldn’t move, then he would not be able to.”

“She knew that and acted accordingly,” Tryggvi’s smile grew. “I want to stay here and keep this town safe. The council of Heroes may see it as a waste of resources and if they do, then I will quit.”

Íþróttaálfurinn patted his brother’s shoulder. “You fell in love with an entire family,” he said quietly. The woods around them finally cleared and the backyard of the Glæpur house was in view. The triplets had managed to get Robbie out onto the grass, all three of them still crowded around their older brother. Tryggvi pulled out ahead of him and went to Robbie, kneeling down and handing Ella off gently. Íþróttaálfurinn watched as the girl woke up a little and waited a moment before he walked to stand at his brother’s side.

“This is my big brother,” Tryggvi put a hand on Íþróttaálfurinn’s shoulder without missing a beat, smiling at the triplets and Robbie, nodding to Ella. “His title is Íþróttaálfurinn but his name is Ingvar.”

“I have the fae who attacked you in here,” Íþróttaálfurinn held up the spell-sphere which held Lisbet. “There is going to need to be some research still, furthering what my brother has been doing in his time here, but I suspect there was a competing inheritance factor. Ella,” he gestured to the girl where she was being held by her father still. Her eyes were half-open, exhausted after being adrenaline-rushed, and he smiled. “Will likely have some things to add to the story. She did very well to defend herself. Lisbet,” he held up the sphere again. “Is not coming out of this until I have her before the council of heroes and on trial for crimes against several species. She will then be taken before the Seelie Court where they will try her as well. After that, she will be taken to the Unseelie Court and her people will decide what to do with her.”

The brothers nodded in agreement, Ella managing to make a very quiet noise of agreement.

“In the meantime, however, Tryggvi and I need to remove the spells currently still surrounding the house. Lisbet tore holes in them, wounded them, but they are still functioning.” He put the sphere back in its pouch and tied it to his belt. “We will need access to a fairly open space with plenty of room on the floor.”

“You can use my lab,” Robbie met Tryggvi’s eyes and both of them smiled. “You know where it is, you can lead him to it.”

“I do know, yes,” Tryggvi smiled at the fae, watched him comforting his daughter for a second more. “Come on, Ingvar, we need to get this finished. They’ve been trapped long enough.” He stepped around his brother, leading the way into the house and down the hall.

 

~

 

Once they were out of earshot of the Glæpur family, Tryggvi turned to look at his brother. “Only one of us is needed to perform the spells to fix everything.”

“I know this,” Íþróttaálfurinn clasped his hands together behind his back. “And if you do not mind, I would ask that it be you. Good practice, would certainly be a good mark on your record once you go to be fully trained as a hero. But…” he sighed, watching his own footsteps, lost in thought for a second before he continued speaking. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?”

“To Glanni.”

Oh.

For a moment, Tryggvi thought of the letters he’d discovered. He thought of the obvious care in them, the way Íþróttaálfurinn’s magic marked each one. He had come home for a time when Stephanie was seven, spending four months with them. Tryggvi remembered thinking, however briefly, that Íþróttaálfurinn had changed somehow. He’d seemed a little quieter, like he was at peace in his own mind for once. “You loved him.”

Not a question. Tryggvi couldn’t bear to make it a question. Íþróttaálfurinn would suffer for it.

His brother nodded slowly. “He was hard to love. Acted like a cat being given a bath at times, but I met him when I wandered into town for a while one day. Our parents were helping Stephanie set up her birthday party and he was wandering through town with his youngest brother and his niece.” Íþróttaálfurinn smiled, looking fond. “Nearly ran into me right then, his brother caught him by the elbow and kept him from falling over. His niece was startled as well, but she laughed when I apologized. Her uncle looked like he wanted to smack me.”

Glanni sounded like a more extreme version of Robbie, Tryggvi thought. He didn’t say it out loud.

“We just kept running into each other, literally and also the nicer way of it. It wasn’t until he found me in the toy store that he actually stopped and talked to me,” Íþróttaálfurinn’s eyes closed for a moment, lost in his own memory. “That was when I found out that she was his niece. He also scolded me for nearly choosing the wrong kind of toy for Stephanie.”

They arrived at the door to the lab, halting in front of it.

“You always were somewhat bad at gifts,” Tryggvi smiled at him, feeling his heart ache a little. Íþróttaálfurinn and Glanni had been a secret kept between themselves. “What happened with him and you?”

“I needed to go back to my travels,” Íþróttaálfurinn sighed. “I told him, he said he understood, I kept up with him by letters. He mentioned something going wrong, the possibility of me never seeing him again. He used to be a criminal, you see. Settled down to help his younger brother raise his daughter, decided family was more important than committing crimes. At the time, I wrote him back and begged him to tell me what was wrong, to tell me what had found him. I asked if something from his past had come after him.”

“Did you ever get a response from that letter?”

“I never did,” Íþróttaálfurinn put a hand on the door, swallowing nervously. “Too much time had passed between his letter being sent and me being able to receive it.”

They pushed open the door together and Íþróttaálfurinn made a noise of despair when he saw Glanni’s body in the glass coffin. It was undisturbed by the ripping apart of the spells on the house, probably held from decomposition until the rest of them were peeled back. Despite everything, he still looked like he was merely sleeping.

“I asked you to perform the spells because I wanted to say goodbye,” Íþróttaálfurinn whispered. “And to tell him how sorry I was that I wasn’t able to save him.”

“It took our father decades to find someone he couldn’t save that affected him this much,” Tryggvi kept his voice quiet as well, trying to preserve the air of something approaching peace. “Are you going to retire even earlier than him?”

“…I might,” Íþróttaálfurinn’s fingers were hovering over the glass, studying Glanni’s face. “Please just get to work, little brother.”

Tryggvi sat in the middle of the room, nudging one of the tables out of his way before he settled down and started arranging stones he pulled from his pocket. Now that the spells Lisbet had put on the house itself were starting to fall apart, the windows in the lab were completely open. Sunlight was starting to stream through, ushered in by a breeze, and lit the room, dust motes stirred by their footsteps. Time had passed in the forest the way it always did in Fae territory: Strangely and faster than one would think possible.

His magic flaring inside of him, Tryggvi set to dismantling the spells left on the house.

On the edge of his awareness, he could sense his brother going to stand at one of the windows, looking out at the lawn and basking in the light. He couldn’t blame him; he wanted to do the same. After the night and morning they had all been through, he couldn’t imagine any of them wanting to do anything but sleep in the most comfortable places they could. From experience, he knew Ella would probably want to arrange a bed on the roof and sleep in the sunlight until her fair skin was probably several shades darker.

Seelie were the summer court, after all. It made sense that she loved the sunshine as much as she did.

The spells were fraying apart at the edges, only a few minutes left before they were completely disbanded, when Tryggvi was sent flying backward. He rolled across the floor, the air knocked out of him, his side aching beyond any pain he had felt in ages. A few seconds after he landed, a heeled boot landed on the back of his shoulder.

“And just what,” came a snarling hiss of words. “Do you think you’re doing _in the house of my family?_ ”

“Í-” Tryggvi tried to throw the booted foot off, wheezing a little on his words. “Íþróttaálfurinn!” the heel dug in a little harder, nearly cutting off the last letter of his brother’s title. “ _Íþróttaálfurinn_!” he could feel the pressure on his shoulder getting worse, threatening to split the skin and make him bleed.

Running footsteps came across the room, his brother stopping just a few feet away from him.

Tryggvi became suddenly aware of a weighty pressure against the tip of his ear. Cold metal was against the skin and he realized what was happening. It was a knife. There was a knife pressed against the tip of his ear, a very present threat that told him what would happen if he moved. At the very least, his ear would be cut off, that much was obvious.

“Glanni,” Íþróttaálfurinn’s voice was quiet, barely holding it together. “Let him go.”

“Can’t be him,” came an unfamiliar voice. It sounded like Robbie’s in most respects, the same accent the man had, but it seemed…Off. Deeper, a different cadence to it. This person spoke like he viewed the world around them as a threat. “Ingvar left, had to travel. Can’t be him. Curse changing? Must be. Must keep Robbie safe. Ella…”

“Glanni,” Íþróttaálfurinn tried again. Out of the corner of his eye, Tryggvi could see him reaching out carefully.

“Can’t be,” Glanni muttered, his knife still against the side of Tryggvi’s head. “Ingvar is gone.”

“Ella was turning eight when you first met me,” Íþróttaálfurinn tried a different tack. “It was her birthday and she had asked for you to take her around town. She wanted to bake her own cake and her father was busy with something else. I believe you said that your sister-in-law was sick.” He laughed, nervous, and his eyes were wide, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You scolded me on the proper birthday gifts for my own cousin. Told me that just because she was a girl didn’t mean I should get her the ‘coded’ gifts the clerk suggested.”

“…Ingvar?” Glanni’s head cocked, just barely able to be seen by Tryggvi.

“My father called me back when he found out what was happening to your family,” Íþróttaálfurinn stepped a little closer. “My brother, he found some of my letters to you and he wrote his own to me.”

“You’re actually here…” Glanni’s voice was awestruck and he pulled his knife away from Tryggvi’s ear. “How? We weren’t…Couldn’t get out. Trick?” the heel pressing into Tryggvi’s shoulder relented, letting him up. “Proved memories. Stuck here now?”

Tryggvi sat up slowly, backing away from the other.

“Shouldn’t be stuck here.” Glanni frowned, shaking his head. “Heroes aren’t supposed to get stuck.”

“If I can get back to what I was doing,” Tryggvi spoke up, hesitant. “I can finish unknotting the spells that were put on the house. Free roaming for the entire Glæpur clan. No more being stuck in the house.” He stood up slowly, walking back across the room when Glanni didn’t move to stop him. “Íþróttaálfurinn, help get him aware? He should probably be told of what happened before we leave this room.”

“You are leaving this room first,” Íþróttaálfurinn shot back, kneeling down in front of Glanni. “To tell his family.”

“Absolutely,” Tryggvi nodded.

There was no way he was going to let it happen without Robbie and the others having some sort of warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So someone called the Glanni thing. I mean, a body not decomposing? Even after nearly two years? Sleeping Beauty style. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.


	7. Home Again Home Again

Tryggvi moved down the hallway as fast as he could without breaking into a run.

How exactly was he going to tell Robbie about this?

When he re-entered the main room of the house, the rest of the Glæpur family had come back inside. Ella was in Robbie’s lap, asleep and clutching his shirt like an infant, small and scared and exhausted. Robbie seemed content to hold on to her, petting softly at her hair. It was still in the braids she always carefully wove it into before bed but there were leaves, and other bits of the forest, stuck in it.

Every time Robbie encountered a piece, he carefully picked it out, humming soothingly when she muttered in her sleep.

The triplets were watching their older brother and their niece like they were prepared to leap up at any moment and defend them if necessary. Tryggvi had to admire the tenacity of the family – they were not the type to back down. Their reaction to being cursed had been to adapt and keep moving. Hopefully, it would be the same for finding out that their oldest brother was still alive.

“Robbie?” Tryggvi said it quietly, drawing the man’s attention.

When he looked up, Tryggvi could not quite bring himself to shatter the peace just yet. “Thank you,” Robbie said softly, looking utterly fond at Tryggvi. There was relief in his eyes, the sort of relief that comes after an age of stress and worries, panic and anger.

Tryggvi stepped quietly to his side, sinking to his knees next to the armchair that Robbie was sitting in. The bright orange of it seemed a little out of place with the color scheme of purples, pinks, maroons and black that the entire Glæpur clan seemed to favor, but it was Robbie’s favorite chair. “Is she doing alright?”

“She is just sleeping,” Robbie nodded, smiling when Ella snuffled and buried her face in his chest. Her slippers were a mess, marked by the mud and streaked with grass stains. “She is safe, thanks to you and your brother.”

“The spells keeping you all locked into the house are gone,” Tryggvi said after a moment of just watching the two of them sitting quietly. There was something lighter about Robbie, now. Something that seemed to be, if not entirely joyful, at least something close to happy. “And there is something I need to speak with you about.”

“Is everything okay?”

Tryggvi saw the panic flash into Robbie’s eyes once more and he reached out to put a hand over the hand Robbie had on his daughter’s back. “Everything is fine. Robbie, please believe me. Everything is good and well, the spells are gone and done. It is actually something to do with that,” Tryggvi took a deep breath, still making contact with Robbie. “When I was removing the spells, something happened. I believe it is a good thing.”

Robbie studied him for a minute, then nodded slowly. “What happened?”

“The curse did not kill Glanni,” Tryggvi winced. He had not meant for it to come out like that. “It made him sleep. Intensely and deeply. As if he were dead.”

His breath catching in his throat, Robbie stuttered over the words he tried to say. His eyes moved quickly over Tryggvi’s face, studying it closely, before landing on the ear that Glanni had held a knife to. “How badly did he hurt you?” Robbie muttered, still trying to keep from panicking. “He _cut_ you. There is _blood_ on your _ear_.”

“I am fine,” Tryggvi smiled, trying to reassure him. “My brother is in your lab with him, trying to keep him calm and convince him of what is happening.”

“Robbie?”

Looking over at Tobby’s concern, Robbie took a deep breath. “Here,” he said quietly, standing up. Ella shifted in her sleep, moving with her father’s movements. Robbie gestured Tryggvi into the chair and settled his daughter into the elf’s lap. “It is probably best if I tell them,” Robbie put his hand on the top of Ella’s head again, kissed the crown of it, then hesitated.

After a moment, he leaned in and kissed Tryggvi’s cheek.

Flushing bright pink, Tryggvi squeaked and nodded. “Go tell them,” he smiled.

With Robbie across the room, speaking quietly with his brothers, Ella woke up. She blinked a couple of times, peering intently at Tryggvi’s chest, then followed the lines on his shirt up to his face. “Hi Tryggvi,” she muttered. Before he could respond, she shifted so that her legs were hanging over the arm of the chair and her arms were around Tryggvi’s neck.

Apparently satisfied with her new arrangement, Ella fell back asleep, her head curled under his chin.

Tryggvi felt his heart skip a beat.

She felt so little, almost frail. Most Fae did – Robbie did, to an extent – but she felt especially small for some reason. It may have just been the fact that she was trusting him enough to keep sleeping like she had around her father. Maybe it was the fact that he loved her father as much as he did.

Whatever it was, Tryggvi felt like that was where he was supposed to be. He could see a future of being Robbie’s partner, of having Ella be as good as his daughter.

He _wanted._

Tryggvi tucked Ella a little closer and started humming a lullaby his parents had once sung to him. It was something odd, an elven song about not letting strangers get you, trusting in the moon, but it seemed appropriate to sing to a Fae child.

After a few minutes, faintly rocking her and humming, Tryggvi realized that the rest of the room had gone silent. When he looked up, Flobby was grinning, his hands on his hips. Tobby had his face pressed against the wall to keep from laughing out loud. Bobby only shook his head when Tryggvi looked at him, gesturing at Robbie.

Robbie was staring at Tryggvi with something close to wonder in his eyes. His face was flushed, his eyes bright, and his hands were pressed over his heart.

 

~

 

Oh, Robbie thought as he watched Tryggvi holding his daughter.

The elf had at once, without question, settled in and held Ella as she slept. While talking to his brothers, Robbie had realized that the elf was humming and rocking her, treating her as if she were his own child. It made something in Robbie’s chest go tight.

If it were possible, he felt himself falling more and more in love with the elf in that moment.

Tryggvi looked up and Robbie almost wanted to whack Tobby upside the head for the concern it put on Tryggvi’s face. “Is everything alright?” Tryggvi asked, swallowing what looked to be an ocean of concerns.

Robbie nodded. “Everything is fine,” he assured him. He wanted to kiss him, right then, wanted to ask him to move in and be his and stay. Tryggvi was still acting as if he belonged, even without the curse dragging him in. Robbie still wanted him there, even with the curse having ended.

Glanni was alive.

Everything was okay because he still liked Tryggvi and he had his family and Ella was curled up happily in Tryggvi’s lap.

“Is…” Robbie took a deep breath and tried to will away to urge to go join Tryggvi and Ella in the chair. He wanted nothing more than to curl up with them and some part of him, likely Fae and instinctual, wanted to join what his heart was screaming was his _family_. It scared him a little. “Is my brother still with Íþróttaálfurinn?”

“He should be,” Tryggvi looked towards the hall. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“…Yes.” Robbie nodded, trying to remember how to breathe. It was finally settling into his head, after a delay, that Glanni was still alive. He had spent months trying to figure out how he was supposed to bury someone when they were all stuck inside. The planning and the workarounds he had been developing were useless and he was _happy_ for once that his plans had gone astray.

_Glanni was alive._

Robbie moved across the room and helped Tryggvi get Ella settled on the couch, both of them watching with fond smiles as she curled around one of the pillows. Feeling the panic rising in his throat, Robbie took a deep breath and then turned towards his lab.

Before he could bully his own body into moving, Tryggvi’s hand slipped into his. “It will be okay, Robbie,” the elf’s voice was soft, as calming as possible, given the circumstance.

They walked down the hall in silence, a solidly together front of worried excitement and confused happiness. The lab doors loomed over them for a second before Tryggvi reached out and pushed them open, tugging at Robbie’s hand again. “Ingvar?” Tryggvi called out.

“Over here,” Ingvar’s voice came back from somewhere in the vicinity of the biggest window.

They moved to where he was and it almost did not surprise Robbie to see Glanni leaning back against Ingvar’s chest, his eyes half-closed, his hands folded over Ingvar’s where they rested on Glanni’s stomach. The elf was a little flushed looking, his cheeks a ruddy pink color. He had Glanni cradled in between his legs, a protective barrier of sorts.

Glanni’s eyes opened slowly, but all the way.

Robbie felt the worry in his chest go loose and smiled at his brother. “We do choose a lot of the same things,” Robbie muttered. Glanni nodded, then took a deep breath and turned so that his face was pressed into Ingvar’s shoulder.

“Glad you’re okay,” Glanni muttered back. “We sure this is real?”

“This is real,” Tryggvi smiled at both of them, a little unsure, and Robbie wanted to laugh. His elf was a strange mixture of sweet and hard. “How are you feeling? You seemed able to walk earlier, but I know adrenaline and panic make for good motivational things.”

Ingvar looked up at his own little brother and nodded. “His legs gave out from under him once he realized there was no threat. He tried moving and could not, so I picked him up and moved him over here. Sunshine, despite him seeming like an Unseelie at times, is very much his element.”

“Flatterer,” Glanni leaned his head back until the side of his jaw could brush Ingvar’s cheek.

Ingvar’s grip tightened on him for a moment before relaxing. His fingers brushed over Glanni’s hips as if he were reassuring himself that the other man was actually still there.

Robbie winced as he realized a couple of things.

Firstly: Glanni had probably attacked the moment he had woken up. The spells had been pulled off the house and he was woken up – he had probably seen someone he did not recognize and had attacked.

The someone he did not recognize had probably been Tryggvi.

Anger flared within him for a moment as he thought of the blood on his elf’s ear, but Robbie pushed it away in favor of the second point.

Glanni had spent a long time in what was essentially a comatose state. He was probably almost actually starving. Exhausted, starving, and it was likely that his muscles had atrophied somewhat. With what Robbie and Tryggvi had discovered, it was likely that Glanni had been unknowingly drawing on whatever magic he had. Adrenaline could explain some things, magic could explain more.

Awake and aware enough to attack immediately after waking up from a magical coma, that would likely be whatever power he had managed to drag through his body.

“You’ve got that look,” Glanni slurred.

“What look?”

“Like you are trying to solve a problem by just throwing that brain of yours at it,” Glanni’s almost mercury-colored eyes managed to focus on Robbie and he felt a shiver run down his spine. “You always get that look when you’re worried.” He flapped a hand in the vague direction of his younger brother.

Tryggvi turned to look at him again and Robbie could practically _feel_ the elf memorizing Robbie’s expression.

“We’ll figure it out,” Glanni was muttering again, turning as best he could until Ingvar reached to help and curled the taller man against him and stood up.

 

~

 

His entire body was sore.

Somewhere between settling down to help his little brother raise a daughter and cutting off ties with his past, Glanni had managed to forget how entire-body pain felt. His legs refused to move, feeling as if he had been zapped by lightning or something. Loose and tense all at once, unresponsive to being asked to move but also extremely responsive to being touched – oversensitive, really.

At least his arms and neck were still under his command.

Ingvar’s body was warm as he carried Glanni through the halls of the house, towards the living room. Faintly, at the edges of his awareness, exhaustion threatening to flatten him, Glanni could hear voices. It took a few moments to identify them, but he could pinpoint Bobby’s voice anywhere, and Tobby’s nasal sounding tones were just about one of a kind.

His other brothers, the babies of the family.

“Where is Ella?” he asked quietly. When no one seemed to hear him, panic flashed through him. Glanni struggled a little, sighing in relief when Ingvar looked down at him, frowning. “Ella?”

“She is safe,” Ingvar smiled. “Tryggvi and I, we had to rescue her. But she is safe and sound. I believe she may have gone back to sleep in the wake of all the excitement. An Unseelie captured her, dragged her out of the house while she was still wearing her bedclothes, threatened her…It has been a _very_ trying day for some of the Glæpur family members. You and she are probably due some quality sleep, soon.”

“Sleep is good,” Glanni nodded. “Just as long as we wake up again.”

“You will, I promise,” Ingvar hugged Glanni closer for a moment, then took a deep breath and glanced at his little brother, his eyes trailing to where Glanni’s younger brother was holding the other elf’s hand still. “We still have some things we need to talk about, Glanni.”

“Not my fault you were being painfully slow,” Glanni tried to make it sound disdainful but he had a feeling it mostly came out pitifully. “I tried for _months_ to get you to realize I was flirting. You probably thought I was just sucking up and playing nice, given my history. Hell, Elf, do you realize what you put me through?”

Ingvar laughed.

That was, in all honesty, one of Glanni’s favorite sounds. Ingvar had a nice laugh, deep and a little rough, and it was not something that anyone heard often. For all his kindnesses, the elf was a fairly serious person, tending to focus on what was happening and how to keep chaos from ensuing.

It had been part of why Glanni had talked to him in the first place, actually.

Ingvar had been buying a gift for the little girl in his family, her birthday was coming up after all, and he had sat in front of the wall of toys and makeup and accessories and looked entirely lost. Truthfully, he had looked like he was planning on how to approach a battle and Glanni had felt the need to go over to him and help him out a little. He did not feel that urge often, so when he did feel it, he usually decided to follow through with it.

After that, it had only been a few short hops, skips, and jumps until they considered each other a somewhat odd friend.

Glanni did not have many friends.

In the present, Ingvar’s gentle throat-clearing noise caught his attention and Glanni looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Hm?”

“Hi, uncle Glanni!” Ella’s voice was tired sounding, but her eyes were bright, and she seemed aware when he looked at her. The triplets were watching him closely as well, as if he might actually be a dream. If it weren’t for the way Ingvar was holding him and the heat of his body, Glanni would be absolutely certain that it was a dream.

After all, one did not usually wake up after being cursed by a Fae. One did not usually get to return to their family, either. By all rights, he probably should have been dead.

All of them should have.

Ella’s hand curled into his and Robbie sat down on her other side. The second elf perched on the arm of the couch, one of his hands resting on Robbie’s shoulder. If he had felt strong enough, Glanni would have laughed. Based on the structure of his face and the colors of his skin and hair, the second elf was Ingvar’s little brother.

Well, Glanni thought, their mother always had said that he and Robbie were very much alike.

Everyone seemed content to talk quietly for a bit and Glanni was a little glad for it. Too many voices, too loud – his head was hurting like he had gone on a week-long bender and only just woken up with a hangover headache from Hell. His body was still sore and he felt like most of him was bruised if not outright shredded.

In short, he _hurt._

The magic he had been dragging into his system just after waking up was letting him know that it was a mistake. The magic he had thought would only come in a trickle, just enough to help him stay upright, had come pouring in waves. It had caught him off-guard and now he felt slightly woozy.

Little bits of research he had done a couple of years ago was coming back to him and he wondered, not for the first time, how much their mother had kept from them.

As if wanting to answer him, Robbie sighed and cracked his neck before looking up to see the entirety of the family around him. “So…” he started awkwardly. “The Fae who took Ella was named Lisbet. She claimed to be Ella’s great-great-aunt. Specifically, our mother’s half-sister.” The second elf’s hand moved to the back of his neck, pressing carefully into the muscles in an attempt to loosen them. Robbie took a deep breath and nodded. “Lisbet is a full-blooded Fae. Our mother was a half-Fae. This whole curse was, apparently, about a territory dispute. Lisbet had a plan to take Ella and claim her as a daughter, which would give her a foothold in the Seelie territory we live in. Lisbet is an Unseelie.”

Ingvar’s quiet growl went unnoticed by anyone besides Glanni and the other elf.

Ella sat up a little further, still holding Glanni’s hand and leaned her cheek into Robbie’s upper arm. “She was angry about us,” she said in a soft whisper, as if she were still a little scared. “Said that grandmother was a mistake.”

“As I said earlier,” Ingvar smiled when Ella looked at him. “Lisbet is going to face a couple of different justice systems, go through quite a few trials. Your blood will win out, you will be seen as the ones who actually belong in the lands you live on.” He shared a look with his little brother and both of them grinned. “We can also, if the elven council allows, assign an elven hero as the local guardian of the endangered Seelie territory. Given that there has been a very legitimate threat to the territory and to the surrounding town, I can see no reason why they would not allow it.”

The other elf seemed to go frozen for a moment, a hope in his eyes that was obvious to anyone even looking in his direction.

Robbie looked happier than he had on the day he had married the woman who had given him Ella.

Glanni could only imagine it was a relief. To know that the one he loved was not only going to stay with him once not forced to, but was actually going to also stay in the town they both lived in...

He could not imagine something better for the two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to get the awake Glanni POV in there somewhere! 
> 
> After this, there is only the epilogue. Hope you guys enjoy and are still reading.


	8. Feel The Call Of Home

**_EPILOGUE_ **

**_Six Months Later_ **

The woods were quieter these days.

Once Lisbet’s curse had gone and the lands were returned to Seelie control, the trees had thinned out somewhat. Sunlight made it into them now, touching everything inside and making it glow gold. There was also a path from one side to another. Robbie smiled as he stepped out onto it, Ella at his side. “Are we ready to go?” he asked her. “We have everything?”

“Yes,” she nodded, holding up the basket of foods and wrapped gifts. “We should go now.”

They began walking, side by side, and Robbie’s smile grew. Ella was twelve now, her birthday had come and gone and she was going to keep getting older. She wouldn’t spend her twelfth year in a glass coffin, she wouldn’t be stuck as a clockwork child forever. She could wander out into the sun and feel it on her skin and gain the freckles she’d lost when they were stuck in the house.

Robbie put a hand self-consciously over his own nose, looking at his freckles for a moment.

They had come back the moment he’d spent more than fifteen minutes outside. A side-effect of being a Seelie, in all likelihood. The elves had told them some more about the people the Glæpur family belonged to. The Seelie Court had come to see to them some time after that, apologies and half-meant sorrows on their tongues for letting an Unseelie control them and their birthright for so long.

The forest was _theirs_.

It was a strange reality to have to get used to.

Ella was walking like she was dancing again, practicing for a recital she had coming up soon. She wasn’t wearing her ballet shoes, not for a walk through the forest, but Robbie knew they were in her backpack. Eírík had grown incurably fond of Ella, setting up a practice space for her, outside, at both houses. Ella and Stephanie and some of the local children had become good friends.

Ella had a life outside of the confines of their house now.

The triplets had gone back to work immediately, resurrecting their old entertaining business. Flobby still catered to children who couldn’t speak, his own lack of a voice helping them find someone to identify with. Tobby dealt with children who felt uncomfortable in their own skin, helping them feel happy with the way they were if he could. Bobby was the clown of the group, putting his tumbling skills to use and helping the children who weren’t as graceful as the others. He taught them how to control their clumsiness, how to recover from it and keep moving without bruising as much.

They had come back to town with skills learned in the nearly two-year period they had been gone.

Robbie held out a hand, guiding Ella over a fallen tree, using it as a bridge.

Glanni had finally realized that reality had come back for him.

That had been the worrying part, how out of it Glanni had been after being pulled out of the curse. His body had barely listened to him, causing him to fall over if he didn’t balance correctly. He’d recovered, however, going from a wheelchair to a walker and finally to a cane. He was still using the cane.

The doctors in town had said that he probably would be using the cane for most of the rest of his life. Some of the muscles in his left leg had atrophied completely and wouldn’t develop correctly again, unable to hold his weight without support. Glanni had whined about it for a while, pitching several fits about having to use a cane, until Íþróttaálfurinn had shown up with a pink one, rose quartz as the handle. The elf had sheepishly mentioned the healing properties of it, his cheeks nearly the same color as the stone.

Glanni had shut up after that.

Glanni had also gone off with Íþróttaálfurinn and when they returned there had been a sizable hickey on the elf’s neck. Robbie wasn’t going to ask what his brother had been doing, he didn’t want to know. But after that, Glanni had willingly used his cane instead of trying to drag himself around the house without it.

And now?

Robbie reached the edge of the forest, Ella still holding his hand. There was a line where the trees changed colors, the leaves changing shape. They were smaller here, still tall enough for Robbie to walk under them, but smaller than the ones they were walking out of. “Are we ready?” Ella asked him. “To go, I mean.” She looked up at him out of the corner of her eyes, tilting her head.

“I think we are,” Robbie smiled and they stepped into the grove of apple and cherry trees.

Something in the air changed, the aura of Seelie left behind in the wilds of their forest. Robbie and Ella walked through the fruit trees, arriving at the backyard of a house. It was a lovely little house, painted in a couple of different shades of blue. The trim was white and the roof was a complimentary shade of brown and something in Robbie’s heart called out that it was home.

As if they had been waiting, Tryggvi and Stephanie came running out. Eírík and his wife, Soffía, came out slower than them, carrying a picnic basket and some tablecloths. “Hallo!” Eírík called out to them, grinning as Tryggvi drew himself short of Robbie, bouncing on his toes.

“Hello!” Ella called back, waving one hand almost wildly. “Are we on time?”

“You are!”

“Good!” Ella put down her basket, turning to hug her pink-haired friend tightly. “I’m so happy to see you!” she squeaked out, Stephanie’s hug nearly too tight. “We brought you and your family gifts.” She paused, looking nervously back at the forest. “Freely given.”

Robbie hid his amused smile behind one hand.

“Oh?” Tryggvi’s hands were behind his back and he was rocking back and forth on his feet. “That is very nice of you, Ella. May I steal your father for a few minutes?”

Ella eyed him, fond suspicion in her eyes. “What are you going to do with him?”

“Nothing too terrible,” Tryggvi raised one hand like he was being sworn into court. “But I do not think you want to see it.”

“That’s alright then,” Ella nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Great,” Tryggvi beamed at her, taking Robbie’s hand in his own and walking him around the house. Once there, he gently pushed him against the wall, tugging him down for a kiss. Robbie laughed into it, his hands resting on Tryggvi’s shoulder. It was quiet for a few moments, the two of them just pressing into each other and finding relief in the other’s presence. “You made it through the forest again,” Tryggvi said softly, once they had pulled back from the kiss.

“It is a lot safer now, if you hadn’t noticed,” Robbie muttered, nudging his forehead against Tryggvi’s. “With the rogue Unseelie gone, thanks to your brother, it’s not dangerous to walk through it for most people now.”

“I know,” Tryggvi swallowed nervously, nodding. He cupped Robbie’s cheeks in his hands, his eyes slipping closed. “But I still remember it being dangerous.”

Robbie sighed, his arms wrapping around Tryggvi’s shoulders. “I know,” he echoed his elf.

“Because of the curse, because of Lisbet, because of the forest itself missing the Seelie family that lived on the edge of it. It told me, when I was sick from not having sunlight and fresh air,” Tryggvi reminded him. “I suppose I will never stop worrying about you walking through it. Some of my worst memories are of that forest. I still have nightmares about Ella…” he trailed off but Robbie knew what he was talking about. Ever since the fight against Lisbet, Tryggvi’d had nightmares about Ella dying because he hadn’t gotten there fast enough.

“But she is alright,” Robbie smiled a little lopsidedly. “She is safe. You were there to catch her, to help keep her safe and sound.”

Tryggvi pressed up into his space again, kissing the tip of his nose. “I am so happy that she is very smart, just like her father.” His grin made Robbie flush bright pink. “Oh, look! You’re Stephanie’s favorite color now.”

“Hush you,” Robbie rolled his eyes and kissed him again.

“Oh?” they both heard Eírík’s voice say. “Ella, Stephanie, would you mind going to get Robbie and Tryggvi? It is time to eat!”

Both of them turned, just in time to see two heads pop up around the corner of the house. Ella was flushed bright pink, embarrassed but smiling. Stephanie had her hands pressed over her mouth, unable to completely hide the grin she wore.

“Dad,” Ella said primly, stepping completely into view once she realized she had been spotted. “There is food.”

Tryggvi giggled helplessly and nudged the top of his head under Robbie’s chin before pulling away from him. At the last second, he caught Robbie’s hand after sliding his own down the fae’s arm. “That is a very good point, Ella,” his mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh, his mustache twitching as well. He was happy, Robbie could tell.

They had gotten to know each other so much better since the Glæpur family had been freed.

“Are Glanni and Ingvar here?” Robbie followed along when Tryggvi tugged gently to get him moving.

In response to his question, he heard Glanni snort with laughter. “Hurry, little brother, or everything is going to be cold.”

Robbie felt a warmth spread through his chest, looping an arm around Ella’s shoulders and hugging her to his side as he walked past her. Despite everything they had gone through, despite the damages that had been done, they were surviving. They were all alive and well, safe and sound.

They were _home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is a wrap! 
> 
> If you're still reading this story, thank you so much for sticking with it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. 
> 
> You're probably getting tired of me but I have wanted to write this AU for a while. So I hope you enjoy it. So far, unfinished as it is right at this moment (7/31/17), it's at over 14K words. And since it'll be a little while till the end is written and everything in between is finished, I figured I would post the first chapter. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


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